1. Show a calendar on the screen. “Look at this! What is it?” (Students say: It’s a calendar!) 2. Ask students to name the days of the week. (Help them if needed. Guide them to say: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday…) 3. Focus on Friday. “Friday… hmm… no work, no school! I don’t go to work. I don’t go to school.” 4. Ask about feelings. “How do you feel on Friday?” “Do you feel happy or sad?” (Students answer: I feel happy!) “Do you like Friday?” “What about Saturday?” (Students give short answers and have fun!) This warm-up activates known vocabulary (days of the week & feelings), sets a positive tone, and encourages students to speak from the beginning.

I start the lesson with an engaging story to capture the students’ attention and encourage them to help each other by listening carefully. During the story, when a new vocabulary word comes up, students either say the word aloud if they know it or show it through pantomime. After introducing each word, I follow up with a simple CCQ or a small activity to check understanding. Important points such as spelling, pronunciation (including doubled letters like in “swimming”), and word stress are clearly taught and written on the board to help students remember and use the words correctly.

For the first controlled practice, students will look at a series of slides showing real-life photos of celebrities or popular figures (e.g. from Instagram) doing different leisure activities. The images are chosen to be engaging and relatable in order to grab students’ attention. Below each photo, there will be a partially completed sentence such as “She likes ______.” or “He doesn’t like __.” As a class, students will help complete each sentence by identifying the correct activity based on the picture. This activity helps reinforce the structure of the target language while keeping students actively involved and focused through visual support and familiar faces.

I divide the students into pairs or small groups of three, based on where they are sitting. I give each group a set of flashcards with different leisure activities. Students take turns saying whether they personally like or don’t like each activity using the target structure (e.g., “I like swimming.” / “I don’t like shopping.”). Then, they ask their partner the same question (e.g., “Do you like swimming?”), and respond accordingly. After the pair discussions, I call on some students to talk about themselves and their friend using full sentences (e.g., “I like watching movies. She doesn’t like watching movies.”).

Students are divided into groups of four and move to different corners of the classroom. They are given two minutes to speak only in English and talk about their weekend plans using the target vocabulary and structures (e.g. “I like swimming”, “She doesn’t like cooking”). If anyone speaks Persian, their group loses the challenge. After the timer ends, each group chooses one or two ideas and acts it out silently like a photo — for example, pretending to cook, swim, or shop. The teacher takes a photo of each group’s pose, and the rest of the class must guess the activity and describe it using English. This activity encourages fluency, creativity, teamwork, and full engagement with the target language.