Imagine you have a class full of beginners. Not one has ever even heard of the present perfect and only some have learned the basics and know how to introduce themselves. A teacher's nightmare?
It doesn't have to be!
Why not start by writing a list of question prompts on the board such as name, age, job, where from, etc.
Have those who know how to ask the questions do so. As they are asked, write each question on the board. Answer the questions: for example, My name is Samantha; I am 30 years old; I am an English teacher; I am from Canada.
When you've finished the list of questions, begin to go through each one, helping the students to understand what they mean and how to form the question, the word order, and any vocabulary they might not understand. Try to use English to define the word, but in this case it might be appropriate to use the student's native language, since the words are too basic and their level is too low to explain the word "job" in English, without spending a lot of time and therefore losing speaking time for the students.
You can begin listing numbers, jobs and countries so that the students can begin learning vocabulary needed to have a basic conversation introducing themselves.
Next, ask the students to get into partners. Have one person ask the other each question, followed by the proper response. Try to pair students together that have the same or equal level. It seems like pairing a higher level student with a lower level student would make sense, so one could help the other, but in this case it is not helpful, because the higher level student may feel frustrated that they have to explain things, or they won't feel they are able to practice to their full ability, and/or the lower level student could feel embarrassed that they don't speak as well as their partner.
Go around the room, helping each partner to formulate the question correctly (first let them practice with the questions written on the board and then erase them so they can practice their fluency and try to remember the questions). Help the students formulate their answers and tell them to add any information they want. For example, "I am a nurse at Sanders' Hospital in New Brunswick, Canada."
Make sure each student is formulating the questions and answers before you begin the next step.
The next thing you do should be to start making vocabulary lists with jobs and countries.
Then, tell the students you are doing a similar activity this time, but instead of being themselves, their partner is going to pretend to be someone famous and they are going to answer the questions as if they are that person. If the question asker is still unable to guess the celebrity, the answerer should provide more information.
Have fun with this easy lesson plan for beginners! You don't have to prepare anything or bring materials, just get your beginners speaking and listening in a fun and useful way.
