S2E10 - Hobby Night

Objective & content

The whole Walker family is at home: George counts his skateboard trick, Rosie reads, Paul saws a birdhouse for Grandma and Kate cooks until the pot boils over. The episode consolidates the present continuous in positive, negative and question forms (I'm not panicking, I promise; What are you building?) by narrating four people doing different things at the same time. The vocabulary field is hobbies, family and cooking. Learners listen for who is doing what, then take the in-app quiz.

Pedagogical guide

French and German learners often fall back on the present simple for an action in progress (Dad plays guitar instead of Dad's playing guitar). Four people and four actions in one scene give plenty of parallel examples to drill the contrast.

Suggested procedure

1. (3 min) Mime an action (writing, reading) and ask What am I doing?; elicit You're writing.
2. (5 min) Preview the cooking and hobby words that pupils do not know.
3. (4 min) First listen: how many people are there, and what is each one doing?
4. (8 min) Second listen with pauses after the birdhouse for Grandma, the pot boiling over and We're eating in ten minutes.
5. (7 min) Underline a positive, a negative and a question example on the board, then a quick thumbs-up or thumbs-down check on correct and incorrect sentences.
6. (6 min) In groups, one pupil mimes two actions and the others describe both at once.

Materials & prerequisites

The episode in the PLAY app (audio, slideshow, text and quiz), a student sheet and a teacher sheet with the answer key. Learners need the verb be and the present continuous from the earlier episodes of the module.

Curriculum alignment

Cycle 4 (5e), axis "School and society": family life and leisure activities at home.