Bats and birds: Steps

Brainstorming vocabulary - Whole-class and pair work

1. Divide the board into columns. Put the Bird picture at the top of one column, and the Bat picture at the top of the other. Note

Tell students they are going to find out about bats and birds. Quickly drill the pronunciation of birds and bats. Example Theory

Write the following in the correct columns on the board:

Birds                                                           Bats
feathers                                                       fur
day                                                               ___

In pairs, give students one minute to brainstorm and make their own lists of words. Theory

2. When the time limit is up, start building up the vocabulary on the board by eliciting the words that students wrote down during the brainstorming activity. As you write up the vocabulary items, model them in sentences. Example

Conclude the activity by making sure that all students understand and can pronounce the vocabulary clearly and confidently. 

Sorting pictures - Pair work
3. Tell students to work in pairs. Give each pair of students a copy of the Vocabulary worksheet and the Picture cards. Tell students to cut out the words and pictures. Use the bat and bird pictures on the board to help students understand the meanings of any unfamiliar vocabulary.

Tell students to match the pictures with the words. Encourage them to discuss the sorting activity in English. They may need some communicative language to help them. Note

Monitor students while they are doing the activity. Theory

 When students have finished, get them to feed back their answers to you. Tell students to keep the picture cards. Key

Making sentences - Whole-class work
4. Tell students they are going to make sentences about bats and birds. Put the following questions on the board, leaving space for the answers under each question:

What are birds? 

What are bats?

What do birds have? 

What do bats have?

What do birds do? 

What do bats do?

Under each question write the beginning of the answers on the board. Example
5. Read out the bird questions and model how to answer them using the language on the board. Then ask two or three students to answer the questions. Remind them to make sentences using the words from the Vocabulary worksheet. As students answer, repeat their sentences to make them grammatically correct and write key vocabulary on the board under the questions. Example

Repeat the sentence-building process for bats. Example

Comparing, contrasting and joining sentences - Whole-class work Note
6. Display the enlarged Compare and contrast sheet on the board. 

Label one half of the class bats and the other half birds. Now put students into pairs of one bird and one bat. Tell them that the bird students are going to find out about birds and bat students are going to find out about bats. Tell students to look at the Picture and Vocabulary cards and find pairs which show how birds and bats are the same or similar.

Read out the questions one by one and get students to come out and glue the Picture cards in the correct places.

7. Elicit sentences to describe the pairs of pictures and write them on the board under the appropriate headings of Bats and Birds. Example
8. Read the example on the Compare and contrast worksheet and explain that because the bats and birds are doing the same thing, ie flying, we use and to join them in the sentence. Write on the board:

Birds fly. Bats fly.

Show students how to join the two sentences on the board with and. Write on the board:

Birds and bats fly.
9.

Then show students how to join sentences using but. For example, point to the pictures showing that birds have feathers but bats have fur. Ask students to give you further examples and write the sentences on the board. Example

Show students how to change the punctuation. Example

Model the intonation pattern of the sentences and have students repeat them after you. Example

10. Remove the display and the sentences from the board. Give each pair of students a copy of the Compare and contrast worksheet. Ask them to glue the Picture cards in place and join them with and or but. In the space between the pictures, students should write out a full sentence. Key Note

Take in the Compare and contrast worksheets and mark them. Comment particularly on the use of the conjunctions.

Creating a poster - Pair work
11. Tell students that they are now going to make their own posters.

Give out a large sheet of paper or card to each pair and tell students to glue their completed worksheet onto it. Encourage them to make their posters more original by adding two more sentences about the similarities and differences of bats and birds. In order to do this, suggest they find out more about bats and birds by using the library or the Internet.

Finally get students to decorate their posters and display them in the classroom or some other display area in the school. Theory