A Special Day
This is a pre-intermediate level conversational class focused on the topic of “A Special Day”. Students will learn about special occasions, particularly birthdays. A central audio clip activity focuses on a puppy’s birthday party, featuring various tasks to reinforce new vocabulary. The lesson also includes speaking activities where students describe their own special days using provided sentence frames and answer different questions. Finally, students practice creating a mini-story about a special day and describing a party picture using the acquired vocabulary and expressions.
Student's Version (Light/Dark)
Teacher's Version (Answer Keys)
Printable Classroom Version (A4)
| Level | Vocabulary | Audio Length | Lesson Time |
| A2 / Pre-Intermediate | 9 words | 1:00 min | 60 min |
Vocabulary
- a birthday party
- a puppy
- balloons
- a cake
- presents
- happy
- excited
- to celebrate
- to throw a party
Contents
- Lead-in
- Vocabulary
- Practice
- Listening
- Questions
- True or false
- Practice
- Speaking
- Describe a photo
Teaching Guide
Lead-in
This A2 ESL lesson plan about birthdays begins with six warm-up questions about birthday parties, special days, and celebrations. These questions are designed to get students talking and introduce the topic. On the next page, there is a picture of a dog sitting next to a birthday cake and balloons, wearing a party hat. Students look at the picture and name the objects they see.
Vocabulary, Practice
The following page introduces the target vocabulary for the lesson. Students read questions and find the correct answers using the words listed on the right side. After this, there is a quick practice task where they rearrange words to make correct sentences. There are six sentences in total.
Listening, Questions,
Next, students listen to a short story about a dog’s birthday party. The audio clip is about one minute long. Students should listen twice, take notes, and try to understand what happened. Then, they answer five comprehension questions on the next page. After answering, encourage students to ask two more follow-up questions to their classmates.
True or false, Practice
After listening, there are practice activities. The first is a True or False task: students read eight statements about Teddy’s birthday and decide if they are correct. The second practice task is a gap-fill exercise. Students read a short summary of the story and complete it with the correct words from a word bank.
True or false, Practice
The speaking section focuses on describing a special day. Using five sentence frames, students talk about a celebration they enjoyed—this could be a birthday or another special event. After sharing, their classmate asks them two follow-up questions. The final activity in the lesson is describing three party photos using the provided questions. This can be done in pairs, in groups, individually, or even as homework.
