Relationships and personality

Objective & content

This sheet on relationships and personality opens on a magazine problem page, "Ask Jo: your problems, our advice". Ellie, fourteen, no longer gets on with her moody older brother, and Max, fifteen, feels pushed by his friends to skip lessons; Jo answers both letters with calm, practical advice. The page carries all the target words in context, from siblings, selfish and privacy to open-minded, stubborn, peer pressure, compromise and reliable. By the end, pupils understand and use B1 words for personality and relationships, and give advice about everyday problems ("You should talk to him", "If you explain, she'll understand").

Pedagogical guide

The vocabulary work comes out of the problem page, never from a list. Page 1 checks understanding with six multiple-choice questions. Page 2 matches eight words with their meanings (moody, stubborn, mature, peer pressure) and uses ten words from a box of twelve in new sentences; two words are extra. Page 3 turns verbs into nouns with -ment (argue, argument), with a worked example and five items that need care with the spelling, matches six collocations (get on with your family, come to a compromise, give in to peer pressure) and ends on Jo's reply to a third letter, where each of the seven gaps is a choice between three topic words. It is the hardest task: the wrong words come from the same topic (stubborn, privacy or siblings). Every task tests words, never grammar.

Suggested procedure

1. (5 min) Ask pupils which words describe a good friend; write them on the board.
2. (10 min) Pupils read the two letters, say what they would answer, then read Jo's replies and answer the six questions.
3. (15 min) Page 2: match the meanings, then complete the ten sentences.
4. (15 min) Page 3: the nouns with -ment, the collocations, then Jo's reply.
5. (10 min) Correct with the answer key on page 4; pupils read Jo's reply aloud with the right words.

Adaptations

[S] Read the letters aloud together first; ask pupils what they would answer before reading the replies.

[A] After the collocations, pupils describe a friend or a family member in four sentences with words from the sheet, kindly.

Materials & prerequisites

One copy per pupil of the three pupil pages, in colour or black and white. Page 4 is the answer key with teacher notes: keep it. Pupils should know the present simple and continuous, should and could, the first conditional and relative clauses with who. To take it further, pupils write their own problem-page letter, and a partner answers it.