At the cinema

Objective & content

A two-page pack for one everyday situation: buying cinema tickets and choosing a time and a seat. Pupils learn the words (popcorn, screen, seat, cinema tickets, film poster, 3D glasses) and the phrases to ask for tickets (Two tickets for Robot Friends, please.), ask questions (What time is the film? How long is it? Where's screen two?) and understand the answers (Sorry, it's full. Where do you want to sit? That's sixteen pounds.). Then they hear the same language in a real conversation, the Listen Up! episode "At the cinema", and use it themselves in a role-play. By the end, they can buy cinema tickets, choose a time and a seat, and understand the price.

Pedagogical guide

Page 1 is the language of the situation. Pupils talk about a picture of two friends buying tickets at a cinema desk, write six words under new drawings (the first is done), read a box of useful phrases (what you say or ask, and what you hear), and match five questions to their answers. Page 2 puts the language to work. Pupils complete a short dialogue with words from a box (Ben and his cousin, who want to see Robot Friends), then listen to the episode: Ella and Kofi want the six o'clock film, but it is full and the later one is too late, so they take the half past four. A QR code on the sheet plays the recording on a phone or a tablet, with no app and no login. Pupils tick true or false, listen again for four short answers, then do a role-play with A and B cards: a customer buys two tickets from the person at the cinema desk. Card B holds the information card A needs, so pupils have to ask. Every task opens with an example. Page 1 and the dialogue use other names, places and prices, so they never give away a listening answer. Page 3 is the answer key with the teacher notes.

Suggested procedure

1. (5 min) Pupils look at the picture on page 1 and say where the people are and what they are doing.
2. (5 min) Pupils write the words under the pictures; check together.
3. (5 min) Pupils read the useful phrases aloud in pairs, one asking and one answering.
4. (5 min) Pupils match the questions to the answers.
5. (5 min) Page 2: pupils complete the dialogue with the words in the box.
6. (10 min) Play the episode once for true or false, then again for the short answers.
7. (10 min) Role-play in pairs with card A and card B, then pupils swap cards.
8. (5 min) Check the answers with page 3.

Adaptations

[S] Pupils read the useful phrases aloud in pairs before the role-play, and keep page 1 in front of them while they play it. [A] Pupils invent their own problem in the same place and act it out without the cards.

Materials & prerequisites

One copy of pages 1 and 2 per pupil; cut out the role cards on page 2. Page 3 is the answer key: keep it. To play the episode, pupils scan the QR code with a phone or a tablet, or you play it to the class from the app (Listen Up!, "At the cinema"). Pupils need telling the time, numbers and prices.