This lesson plan aims to teach 11-12 year old students about past simple tense and family relationships through the story "The Enormous Turnip". The 40 minute lesson begins with an introduction where students make predictions about the story by sequencing pictures. As the teacher reads the story aloud, they will stop at various points to ask questions and have students make further predictions. Afterwards, students will identify the important characters and their actions in the story, noting the use of past simple verbs. Finally, students will evaluate what they have learned by observing their engagement with the story and comprehension of past simple tense formation. The objectives are for students to understand the main idea of the story, retell it using time connectives, and understand the function

1. LESSON PLAN 1
By Marina Michael
Dali B’ Primary School, Cyprus
UNIT: 4, RELATIONSHIPS
SUBUNIT: Family
Lesson 1
Age group 11-12 years old
Time: 40 minutes
New Language: past simple
(affirmative), family members
(daughter, granddaughter, son,
grandson, wife, husband),
action verbs, time connectives
(first, then after, finally, etc.),
enormous.
Recycledlanguage: Family
members: mum, dad, brother,
sister, grandma, grandpa, other
vocabulary: huge, gigantic,
food vocabulary: lunch, dinner,
breakfast, soup, adverbials of
time: today, tomorrow, always,
usually, often, sometimes,
never, every
week/Monday/month/year, next
week / month / year/ summer /
etc., days of the week
Resources-Materials:
clapperboard, storybook “the
enormous turnip”, ppt
presentation, film strips,
handout with the story,
interactive board, pictures
For Lessons 1 & 2
Success Indicators
Students should be able to:
Adequacy Targets
Listening
Comprehend short stories Pre and While – storytelling
activities: predictions,
questions, main idea, still
scenes
Speaking
Narrate events which take
place in the past
After – storytelling activities:
story retelling with the use of
time connectives and other
“tools” (pictures)
Reading
Enjoy, follow and participate
actively in the narration of
literary stories
Pre and while – storytelling
activities: predictions,
questions, main idea, still
scenes
Writing
Write a short story Transform “the enormous
turnip”
Learning Strategies
Deduce rules on the function of
language based on its use
Transform the text to present
simple and compare the
function of the two tenses in
storytelling
Objectives:
Pupils should be able to:
 Comprehend the main idea of the short-story
“The enormous turnip”
 Retell the story using the appropriate time connectives
 Deduce the function of past simple in storytelling

2. Time Procedure Class Organization
5΄
Introduction – Pre storytelling stage
The teacher informs students that they are going to listen to a story.
She writes the title on the board, reads it out loud and clarifies the
meaning of “turnip” with the use of a picture. She then hands out a
number of pictures to each pair and asks students to sequence them,
in order to predict the story. As reading proceeds, pairs are requested
to revise their storyline.
Whole class, pairs
20΄
7΄
4’
While-story telling stage
Using directed reading (technique “STOP!”), the teacher starts
reading the story and stops at focal points to ask for further
predictions, clarification and other comprehension questions.
Stop 1-Slide 6: What does “enormous” mean?, How did the farmer
feel?, Show his feelings with a facial expression
Stop 2-Slide 11: Predict - what will happen next?
Stop 3-Slide 13: Predict the actions of grandma
Stop 4-Slide 19: What did the girl say?, Why does she live with her
grandparents?
Stop 5-Slide 23: Who did the girl call?
Stop 6-Slide 28: Who did the dog call?
Stop 7-Slide 29: What did the cat say?
Stop 8-Slide 44: How big is their effort? Is taking out the turnip easy
or hard? How do we know?
Stop 9-Last slide: Why did everyone decide to help?
What would happen if someone said “no”? How would the story be
different?
After Storytelling Stage
 Who is the most important character in the story? Students are
requested to place characters on concentric circles. Before
deciding, they are requested to identify the actions of each
character. What did each character do to help the turnip come
out? The teacher notes them down on a table on the board and
encourages students to observe the verbs and their structure (-
ed).
Farmer Wife Grandaughter Dog Cat Mouse
Planted hugged hugged pulled pulled pulled
said called called called called
decided
pulled
called
said
Whole class, pairs,
individual work
Dyads
Whole class

3. 3΄
Evaluation
Evaluation takes place through observation of the pupils’ responses to
the various activities. Particular attention should be paid to: - how the
pupils respond to the story, if they are able to follow it and how they
engage with it; - whether pupils show comprehension of past simple
tense formation