S2E03 - Anonymous

Objective & content

The episode has three scenes: the school quad at lunch, the Golden Bay living room that evening, and the basement. Stella, Tiago and Mason are the main characters, with their parents Diane and Rodrigo in the second scene. Tiago discovers Mason's secret, and Stella warns him: "You've been painting at three in the morning." Learners focus on the present perfect continuous for a recent or continuing activity, with for and since, and on the contrast with the past simple. The main skill is listening comprehension, followed by a pair speaking task.

Pedagogical guide

This 50-minute lesson for a 3eme class (B1-) follows the scene changes, which are the natural places to pause, because the dialogue has no narrator. The grammar question is why Stella uses the present perfect continuous to warn Mason: the painting does not happen once, it happens again and again. Teachers should keep for (a length of time) separate from since (a starting point). The episode touches on secrets and family pressure: keep the discussion about the characters.

Suggested procedure

1. (5 min) Write "a secret", "street art", "popular" on the board. Pair talk about the most popular person in school and about wall paintings.
2. (5 min) Preview six words: quarterback, comic books, cardboard box, careless, to troll, brutal.
3. (5 min) First listen, without stopping. Students note the characters they hear and say what the secret is.
4. (10 min) Second listen with two pauses, at the end of scene 1 (how Stella seems to feel about the artist) and at the end of scene 2 (why Stella panics).
5. (5 min) Comprehension check on six questions.
6. (5 min) Vocabulary matching, or the vocabulary tasks on the student sheet.
7. (8 min) Grammar focus on three lines from the script, contrasted with the past simple and with since and for.
8. (7 min) Pair role-play: a friend finds out about a secret hobby ("How long have you been painting?"), then a class question on keeping secrets.

Materials & prerequisites

• The student sheet and the teacher sheet in `printables/`.
• The lesson plan of the episode.
• Audio or the Academy app with speakers, board, sticky notes or scrap paper.
• Prerequisite: present perfect simple and past simple.

Curriculum alignment

3eme (cycle 4): the axes "Encountering others" and "School and society".