DESERT ISLAND
AGE GROUP: 17-years-olds
CLASS: the second class of ‘liceum’
LEVEL: intermediate
AIMS:
- to improve students’ speaking skills
- to practise agreeing and disagreeing
- to enable students to express their opinions
- to create an opportunity for making suggestions, using if-clauses, giving and asking for reasons
- to encourage students to interact with the rest of the class
- to enlarge learners’ vocabulary and use it in a meaningful context
ASSUMED KNOWLEDGE:
- a sufficient level of language proficiency to carry out the assigned task
- basic familiarity with the provided expressions
- students have to know how to use the second conditional
ANTICIPATED PROBLEMS:
- some students may be reluctant to participate in the task so the teacher should assign them as the leaders of their group
- students may not use provided expressions
TEACHING AIDS: pictures of the desert island, slips of papers with the list of the things they can choose from and additional small pieces of paper with one noun, verb or adjective describing the island, a fragment of the film ‘Cast Away’ starring Tom Hanks
SOURCE: the idea ‘Keep talking’ by Friderike Klippel
TIME: 45 minutes

PROCEDURE
WARM-UP:
The teacher shows the class the pictures of the desert island (see Appendix 1) and asks what they can see. Each student draws one slip of paper with a word (see Appendix 1). Their task is to describe the island line by line just like in a chain story. They must include a word from the given slip of paper. The teacher starts by providing the first sentence, e.g. ‘This desert island is secluded from the outside world.’
Type of interaction: T-SS
Approximate time: 5 minutes

STAGE I:
Students answer the following questions in pairs. The questions should be written on the board so that everyone can see them.
1. Do you know any fictional characters or real people who spent some time on a desert island? How did they get there? How did they come back? What did they do to survive?
2. How do you imagine life on a desert island? Would you like to spend one week in such a place?
3. What would you do to survive?
Students present their ideas on the forum of the class. Next, they watch the fragment of the film ‘Cast Away’ that shows the daily routines of the main protagonist. After they have watched it the teacher discusses with the students what he was doing to survive and how he felt.
Type of interaction: S-S, T-SS
Approximate time: 13 minutes

STAGE II:
The teacher tells students about their difficult situation and explains the task.
‘Imagine that you and your classmates had a plane crash. All the passengers died and you are stranded on a desert island. All you have are the clothes you are in. the island is full of food and fresh water. The island is inhabited by wild animals and the sea is abundant in fish . Some things are floating on the water quite far away from the shore so you can not take them all. You have to decide which are useless and which might be valuable. You can take only eight things’
The teacher writes on the board phrases that might be helpful in interaction. These are the following:
Let’s take…
Shall we take…?
Why don’t we take…?
I think we should take…because…
Great idea!
Rubbish!
I believe that’s a good/silly idea.
Yes, but…
I agree with you…/I don’t agree with you.
If I were you…, I would…
If I were stranded on a desert island, I would take…
The teacher divides the class into three or four groups depending on the number of students present on the lesson. Each group receives one list of the things that are floating on the sea (see Appendix 1). They have to decide what to take and what to leave giving reasons for their choice. The teacher observes the groups, gives hints and acts as a supervisor.
Type of interaction: S-S
Approximate time: 13 minutes

STAGE III:
Groups present their choices and defend their solutions against the others’ arguments. As the whole class they have to make the final decision concerning the things which they want to take. The teacher’s task is not to let them be disruptive. If the activity gets out of her/his control she/he points which students can talk now.
Type of interaction: S-S
Approximate time: 10 minutes

CLOSE-UP:
Students answer the question whether they would like to spend a month on a desert island alone.
Type of interaction: S-S
Approximate time: 4 minutes

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