A family in the White House

Objective & content

This Look Closer episode (People and characters mini-series, episode 42) is a one-minute documentary about a real family's home life in the White House, in Washington, told with real photos. A single narrator starts with the house, the home of the President of the United States and his family, then looks closer at a 2009 family photo: Barack Obama, his wife Michelle and their daughters Malia, ten, and Sasha, seven. The girls go to a new school and do their homework in the evening; Michelle's mother, Marian, comes to live with them as the girls' grandmother; Bo, the family dog, and later a second dog, Sunny, arrive; and Michelle plants vegetables in the garden with some schoolchildren. The family lives there for eight years, and the girls grow up. The episode is about family life, not politics. The present simple carries the episode (lives, go, do, comes, eats), with the possessive 's and family words (Michelle's mother, the girls' grandmother, wife, daughters) and this is and these are to point at people in a photo, and would you like to in the closing question. Learners listen, then answer the 10 questions in the app: 7 on facts and 3 on family words. The study topic is fictional and real families.

Materials & prerequisites

The folder holds the audio, the slideshow and the script. Each pack is a one-page PDF with the text, three photos, the key words and the 10 questions: a pupil pack, and a teacher pack with the answers highlighted. It also has a pupil sheet and a teacher sheet with the answer key. It has no lesson plan. Play the episode twice, hand out the pupil pack, then use the closing question (Would you like to live in the White House? Why, or why not?) for a short class discussion, with answers such as Yes, because it's a big house or No, because I like my school. Learners should know house, school, dog and morning, and be able to say an age (She's seven). President names the subject of the episode, so it is taught for understanding here, above the A1 word lists.

Curriculum alignment

Tagged people-and-characters (6e, "Personnes et personnages", study topic "Familles fictives et réelles", Cycle 3). The episode targets CEFR level A1+.