Professional Documents
Culture Documents
MATERIALS
• A worksheet with several interview questions (~7) students can ask each other about
ability. The worksheet should not have complete sentences but instead should have a
list of talents such as “play an instrument” and “dance” so students have to practice
constructing the questions. Worksheets should have a pace for students to record
names of students next to each ability.
BACKGROUND
Talent shows are popular in the U.S. The popularity of talent shows extends from school
talent shows to TV shows that are dedicated to displaying talents. This can be an interesting
cultural point to bring up and compare with your students’ culture. Also, talent shows are based
on the concept of ability. A goal of this activity is to distinctly mark the word “can” as a word tied
to ability in order to distinguish it from the word “could” that will be brought up in a later lesson.
The content of the current lesson is hobbies, this activity also provides an empowering way to
look at students’ hobbies as talents.
PROCEDURES
1. Write “talent show” on the board and ask students if they know what it means. Clarify the
meaning if they don’t recognize this word. Ask students about talent shows. Ask if their
school has a talent how each year or if they watch any on TV. Explain that in the U.S
talent shows are popular in schools, movies, and TV shows. You can provide a short
personal anecdote or a short video clip of an American talent show if you are unfamiliar
with them. Here’s a fun example, you could show ~1:00min of it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oi10Zv_a78
2. Ask students what they can do. Some students may volunteer answers such as “play
soccer” and “sing”. Explain that today they will be interviewing their classmates to find
students to join the talent show. In order to do so they will be asking their classmates
4. Go over any vocabulary the students may not be familiar with and write them on the
board with simple explanations. You can do this by asking the students if there are any
words they do not recognize and seeing if other students can explain the word, first.
5. Explain that it’s the students’ job is to make questions using the list. Go over the first one
with the students as an example. First, ask for any volunteer students to create the
question. For example, if “play an instrument” is listed the student may say “Can you
6. Tell students they also need to use full sentences when answering the questions as well,
ex. “Yes, I can ________”, “No, I can’t __________”. Write these on the board as a
7. Tell students they need to write the names of the students who say “yes” next to the
8. Allow students time to interview one another. Walk around the classroom as students
interview each other and make sure they’re on task and using complete sentences.
9. Once everyone is finished, ask the students to return to their seats. Ask students about
who they were able to find for the talent show. For example a student may answer
“Daeun can tell jokes”. In order to encourage students to answer feel free to say what
you can do from the list. If students feel comfortable, you can alot a few minutes for