Speaking Cycle 1: Family Ties

1. Activating

How many different family members can you name in English?

What kinds of problems do family members have with each other?

2. Sharing

Think about a time when you had a problem with another member of your family.

Work in groups of two or three. Tell the rest of your group about this problem. As you listen to your partner(s), decide whether you have had experiences similar to theirs.

3. Preparing

Choose one experience of one member of your group. One of you is going to tell the rest of the class about this experience (it doesn't matter if the person who speaks is the person who had the experience or if they speak about the experience of someone else in their group).

Spend 15 minutes, as a pair/group, preparing what the speaker is going to say. Think about

a) information, such as what the problem was, and with whom; when, where and why it became an issue (i.e. was it a personality problem or the result of external events?); and how the person dealt with the problem; whether the problem was resolved; and

b) the organisation and structure of what the speaker will say.

4. Performing

The speaker from each group talks to the rest of the class.

As you are listening to other speakers, try to answer the following questions:

a) What was the problem each speaker talked about?

b) What was the cause of the problem?

c) How did the person react to the problem, and what was the result?

d) What kind of relationship do the people involved have now?

e) Have any members of your family had similar problems?

5. Reporting

When you have heard the speaker from each group, check your answers to the questions with the other members of your group.

As a group, decide which of the people you have heard about has, in your opinion, the most complicated family.