S1E02 - When's Your Birthday?

Objective & content

Rosie is making a family birthday calendar. She knows every date by heart, while her mum Kate forgets even her own birthday; the last date is the dog's. The episode teaches time markers and dates: in with a month or a season (Mine's in summer), the ordinal date (the fifth of November) and the question When's George's birthday? The vocabulary field is months, seasons and ordinal numbers. Learners listen for each date, then check their understanding with the in-app quiz.

Pedagogical guide

The dialogue is short, so there is time to work on the one hard point: the ordinal plus of (the fifth of November). French learners say le 5 novembre with a cardinal number and no of, and they write months with a small letter; English months take a capital.

Suggested procedure

1. (3 min) Warm-up: write When's your birthday? on the board, ask five or six pupils and group their months by season.
2. (2 min) Preview birthday, calendar, month, season and autumn.
3. (4 min) First listen: what is Rosie making, and who forgets a birthday?
4. (8 min) Second listen: pause after each date and ask which month and which season.
5. (7 min) Board work: in + month or season and the + ordinal + of + month; drill aloud.
6. (6 min) Pairs ask When's your birthday? and answer with a month and a date.

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 months, the numbers to thirty-one and the verb be.

Curriculum alignment

Cycle 3 (6e), axis "The child and passing time": birthdays, months and seasons.