Countries, Nationalities & Continents

• Level: Intermediate

• Skills: Vocabulary, Speaking

• Topic area: Geography

• Required resources: One copy of student’s book for each student.

• Time: 50-60 mins

Lesson’s Description:

This lesson is aimed to introduce some common country names and nationalities, as well as the names of the continents. The lesson begins with an introduction to countries and nationalities for students who haven’t seen these before and concludes with some fun freer practice in a conversational setting.

Objectives:

Students will be able to:

• Practice their speaking skills.

• Practice new vocabulary, and pronunciation.

• Develop new understanding about countries and nationalities.

Procedure:

Lead in- warming up questions:

-Ask students how many country names they know in English. Ask them to name any animals that live in those countries. Ask them if they’ve visited any other countries and which ones they liked.

• Students write the names of the countries under each of the flags. Students can help each other in pairs or small groups to see how many they can answer by themselves before checking the answers as a class. Drill pronunciation of the country names while checking.

• Lead in by asking the students to name the 7 continents, drill pronunciation of each continent and let students find them on the world map.

• Can you name seven of the world’s continents?

• Ask students to fill in the table of countries. Check in pairs or small groups, then as a class.

Write the names of the countries from question 1 in the correct continent.

• Elicit the difference between country and nationality. E.g. ask “What country are you in now?” “What is your nationality?” (i.e. where is your passport from. “What do you call people from Australia? Australians” students fill in the gaps in pairs. Write answers on the board to check spelling.

Nationalities:

• Fill in the gaps in the table of countries and nationalities. Work in pairs.

Ending in ~an

Ending in ~ese

other

4) Students should be able to complete these gaps with their country and nationality.

Quickly fix any problems with understanding the difference, but don’t spend too long on this as it will be practiced in question 5.

5) complete these sentences, so they are true for you.

I’m from____________________. (Country)

I’m _________________________. (Nationality)

This part can be tailored to your class depending on what type of

questions they have been taught or what topics you’ve recently covered in

class. The examples given are for a very low level elementary class.

Complete the following questions to find out the information in brackets:

Complete the following questions to find out the information in brackets.

1        What’s your name?  ___________________________(name)

2        How__________________________________________? (age)

3        Where________________________________________? (country)

4        ______________________________________? (favorite animal)                                                           ___________________________________________?(favorite food)

• Teacher monitors as students practice the conversation in pairs and help with any pronunciation issues. (Note: if you change the questions in question 5, make sure to edit the example conversation to include your new questions.

Read the example conversation below with a partner.

1. A) Hi, how are you? What’s your name?

2. B) I’m Justin.

3. A) Hi Justin, I’m Sally. Nice to meet you.

4. B) Nice to meet you too. Where are you from?

5. A) I’m from Australia. Where are you from?

6. B) I’m British. How old are you?

7. A) I’m 18. And you?

8. B) I’m 20. What’s your favorite animal?

9. A) The kangaroo. And yours?

10. B) My favorite animal is the lion. And what’s your favorite food?

11. A) Steak. And yours?

12. B) My favorite food is fish and chips.

 Students’ Presentation:

Option A

Students know each other in class, so teacher asks them to use the character cards. Split class into groups of 4 – 6 and give each student a character card, asking them not to show anyone else their card. Students pretend to be the character on their card and speak to the other people in their group, gathering the information required to fill in their table.

Option B

Teacher asks each student to imagine they are at a party and they meet some new people. Have a conversation like the example in the character cards other students. Use their answers to fill in the table below.

Option C:

Teacher could ask students to feedback the class information about specific people and if they found out any extra information. Also, teacher could ask students to answer some of the questions truly, as themselves.