Here you'll find a sample vocabulary lesson. The lesson is aimed at a group of low-elementary learners with about 12 students in the class. Total running time should be about
40 to 45 minutes.

Materials needed: 6 drinks you could order in a café e.g. a tea bag, a small jar of coffee, a small carton of milk, a small carton of apple juice, a small carton of orange juice and a can of beer (or bottle of water), board markers or chalk. Beer can be substituted by water if need be.

Preparation: Draw two people sitting in a café with drinks in front of them. Above the drawing put the name of the café (e.g. Joe's café) and an empty speech bubble coming from each persons mouth.

Vocabulary: tea, coffee, milk, apple juice, orange juice and beer (or water).

Function: Review making offers and accepting offers.

Stage 1: Greet the students and tell them what today's lesson is going to be about – going to the café. Make sure the students don't have their notebooks and pens on their desks – they won't need them for a while yet.

Stage 2: Eliciting vocabulary and establishing meaning. Show the first item (a tea bag) and try to elicit the word 'tea'. If the students give you the correct word, offer praise. If the students don't know the word, you will need to give it to them.

Stage 3: Model the word 'tea'. Provide a clear pronunciation model for the students by saying the word 'tea' three times. While you are saying the word, make sure the students are listening not repeating after you.

Stage 4: Drilling. In the stage you drill the word chorally, in groups and individually. For the choral drill make sure all the students say the word together. In the group drill, get the students saying the word together in either groups of 3 or 4. In the individual drill, ask individual students to say the word.

In the individual drill it is probably a good idea to start with one of the stronger students. Where students are having pronunciation problems try to encourage self-correction or peer correction. Don't pressure a student into saying the word more than two or three times if they can't get the pronunciation right. Come back to this student later.

Stage 5: Introduce the second word and go through stages 2, 3, and 4 for this word.

Stage 6: After introducing 2 or 3 of the words review the words that have been presented. Show the tea bag again and prompt the students to give you the word tea. Do the same with your 2nd and 3rd words. This can be done in the order they were presented or in a random order.

Stage 7: Introduce words 4, 5 and 6 (making sure to go through stages 2, 3, 4 and 5 with each word). You can vary the review by showing the students the coffee jar and saying the word 'tea'. The students should then give you the correct word – 'coffee'.

Stage 8: After introducing all the words you could do a final review of the the vocabulary. Line the items up on the table in front of the room and get students to gather around the table. Say one of the words e.g. 'milk', and then pick it up. Say another word e.g. 'beer', and encourage one of the students to grab it.

Make sure you go through all the words at least once.

Stage 9: Written record. Hold up the first item ('tea') and ask students to tell you what it is. Then ask the students to spell the word for you. As the students spell, write the word up on the board. Elicit the part of speech for all the words (noun). Where necessary elicit the stress as well. Repeat the procedure for all the words.

Once all the words are on the whiteboard, ask the students to take out their notebooks and pens and copy the words down. Make sure you go around and monitor, checking that the students are writing the words down correctly.

When the students have finished writing the words down, get them to close their notebooks. Erase the words from the whiteboard and review one more time (see stages 6 and 7 for ideas).

Stage 10: Go to the picture (the café scene) which you drew on the board before the class started. Establish that the two people are sitting in a café and are friends. Get the students to give names to the two people (we'll go with Ron and Emma here).

Point to Ron and indicate the speech bubble coming from his mouth. Ask the students what they think Ron is saying. Accept all answers, but try to steer the students towards “What would you like to drink?' Once you've got this sentence, write it on the board.

Indicate Emma and her speech bubble and try to elicit from the students what she says. If there is no response from the students, pick up one of the items e.g. coffee and prompt the students to say this. Once you've established what she wants to drink, try to get the following sentence from the students “I would like a coffee.” Write the sentence on the board.

You should now have the following sentences on the board:

Ron: What would you like to drink?

Emma: I would like a coffee.

Stage 11: Practice the dialogue. Divide the class into two groups and get them to practice the dialogue (e.g. Group A is Ron and Group B is Emma), switching roles. Then get the students into pairs and have them write the dialogue down and practice it in pairs (again switching roles). Make sure you go around and monitor. Get one or two pairs to say the dialogue for everybody to hear.

Stage 12: Controlled practice. Now using the same dialogue, get students to substitute the word coffee for one of the other drinks introduced in the lesson. Indicate the word to be changed by underlining it (see dialogue above) and then get students to write their new dialogues down.

Once the students have written the new dialogue down, get them to practice in pairs. When you feel they are confident enough, have them stand and mingle, practising the dialogue with other students they meet in the room. Make sure students get a chance to take on both the Ron and Emma parts of the dialogue. Monitor the mingle and make sure students are involved.

To finish off do some open pairwork (pick the students and roles randomly).