Summer Camp

Objective & content

Two friends talk about summer camp: one friend explains, the other asks. The episode visits an American camp, often by a lake in the woods, with its cabins and bunk beds, its counselors (many from other countries), canoes, swim buddies, letters home instead of phones, and s'mores by the campfire, then goes back to the first camps of 1861 and 1885 and ends with about fourteen thousand camps today. Camp life is told in the present simple (every cabin has a counselor, nobody swims alone), the history in the past simple (took, wrote, swam, camped, cooked), with can and can't for what is allowed ("Can kids call home?") and questions in the present and the past ("How long do kids stay?" "When did summer camps start?"); words are defined in the present simple (a cabin is, a canoe is). Learners listen for camp life, the numbers and the dates, then answer the quiz in the app and the one-page pupil sheet.

Pedagogical guide

The 45-minute lesson plan starts from a drawing of a lake, trees and a little house: where do you go in the summer? Learners preview eight camp words, listen twice (once for where the kids go, once with four pauses for questions), then check the facts, practice the vocabulary, sort sentences into "camp life every summer" and "the first camps" to notice the present simple and the past simple, and ask and answer questions about summer camp in pairs. At A1+ learners form simple past simple questions themselves ("When did summer camps start?") and answer briefly ("In 1861."). Most activities have a support path and a stretch path.

Suggested procedure

1. Activate knowledge (3 min): draw a lake, trees and a little house, and ask where learners go in the summer.
2. Vocabulary preview (5 min): cabin, bunk bed, counselor, canoe, buddy, whistle, campfire, s'more.
3. First listen (5 min): play the whole episode (about three and three-quarter minutes) and ask where the kids go and whether they go with their parents.
4. Second listen (12 min): pause four times to ask about the cabins and the counselors, the days at camp and the swim buddies, phones, letters and the campfire, and the name s'mores and the first camp, then about the camps today at the end.
5. Comprehension check (5 min): the Facts part of the pupil sheet (questions 1 to 6, as in the app quiz).
6. Vocabulary practice (4 min): the Vocabulary part (questions 7 to 12).
7. Grammar focus (6 min): sort the episode's sentences into "camp life every summer" and "the first camps", match past forms to their base verbs (take and took, write and wrote, swim and swam), notice can and can't, then the Grammar part (questions 13 to 18).
8. Speaking (5 min): in pairs, students ask and answer the episode's questions about summer camp, in the present and the past.

Materials & prerequisites

• The episode in the app, with its quiz.
• The one-page pupil sheet (18 items: facts, vocabulary, grammar) and its answer key, in the episode's printables.
• Prerequisites: the present simple, and years and big numbers in English.