Tiny Cinderella Somewhere (lower level)

Use this lesson with secondary and adult students at CEFR Level A2 / B1. Students will practise listening and speaking activities related to a photograph.

A child's pink shoe at a pedestrian crossing

ELTPics photo by @harrisonmike

Author

Fiona Mauchline

Introduction

This lesson is designed to encourage students to develop their higher-level critical-thinking skills to speak about images. A number of activities support students in understanding a monologue in which a photographer talks about a photo he has taken. Students then work together to invent a story related to the photograph.

As long as teachers can show the photo used in the lesson, it is possible to deliver this lesson with no other resources. However, teachers can also use a presentation and / or a student worksheet.

Learning outcomes

Use vocabulary related to a photograph
Identify specific information in a spoken text
Invent and tell a story based on a photograph

Age and level

13-17, Adults (A2 / B1)

Time

Approximately 45-55 minutes + 15-minute optional task

Materials

The following materials can be downloaded below.

Lesson plan
Presentation
Student worksheet
Audio: Tiny Cinderella Somewhere

The image is also available at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/eltpics/7318988146/in/set-72157626599491389

Lead-in (10 mins)

Show slide 2 of the presentation or display the photograph: https://www.flickr.com/photos/eltpics/7318988146/in/set-72157626599491389
Ask students to look at the photograph and write down as many words as they can related to it. They should write nouns, verbs and adjectives. They can do this individually or in pairs.
After a few minutes, ask students to suggest vocabulary and write words on the board. If students don’t say any words which are in the transcript, feed some in (these are in bold below). Check meanings and pronunciation of any new words. Examples:
Nouns: shoe / sandal, child / girl, zebra crossing, street / road, car, pavement, photo, traffic lights, button, pedestrian
Verbs: wait, press, cross, see / notice, lose
Adjectives: pink, plastic, lonely / alone, mysterious, unusual

Task 1: Listening 1 (10 mins)

Refer students to Task 1 in the student worksheet. Alternatively, show slide 3 of the presentation or draw a 3x3 grid on the board. Ask students to copy the grid.
Explain that students will listen to the photographer talking about the photo. They should choose nine words that they think they will hear from the list on the board, then they should write a different word in each square of the grid.
Explain that students will play a variation of bingo. If they hear the photographer say one of the words in their grid, they should draw a cross over it. If they draw three crosses in a line (vertically, horizontally or diagonally), they should raise their hand – and can even shout ‘bingo!’
Begin playing the audio file: Tiny Cinderella Somewhere. https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/sites/teacheng/files/2024-08/Tiny_Cinderella_Somewhere_lower_Audio.mp3
When a student raises their hand, pause the recording. Ask the student to say which words they heard and award a point. Continue playing. How many students will shout ‘bingo’?
If no one shouts bingo, play the recording until the end. The winner is the person who has crossed out the most words by the end.

Task 2: Listening 2 (10-15 mins)

Show slide 4 of the presentation or refer students to Task 2 in the student worksheet.
In pairs, students read the sentences and decide if they are true, false or don’t know (i.e. we don’t find out that information in the recording). Don’t give the answers at this stage.
Play the recording again. Students listen and check their ideas. Allow students to compare in pairs and play the recording a third time if necessary.
Check answers with the class. If statements are false, ask students to make them true. Students could also check answers with the transcript available at the end of this lesson plan or on slide 6 of the presentation.
Answers: 1. False (he took the photo on a weekday, but he doesn’t remember which day); 2. True; 3. False (he had his mobile phone in his pocket); 4. We don’t know; 5. False (he asked himself a lot of questions); True
Alternative if using neither the presentation nor worksheet: Ask students to say what they understood after listening to the recording. Write some of their ideas on the board as sentences e.g. The man took the photo in London. Write about 6 sentences. At this stage, don’t say if the statements are correct or not. Then play the recording again for students to check their ideas.

Optional comprehension task (15 mins)

Put students into pairs. Ask them to write three more true statements about what they heard in the recording e.g. He took the photo in London.
When they’re ready, pairs join up to make groups of four or six. They read their sentences out to each other. The other members of the group say if they understood the same thing.
At the end of the activity, clear up any misunderstandings. Alternatively, show / hand out the transcript for students to check. The transcript is available at the end of this lesson plan or on slide 6 of the presentation.

Task 3: Speaking (15-20 mins)

Ask students if they can remember any of the questions that the photographer asked in the recording.
Show slide 5 of the presentation or refer students to Task 3 in the student worksheet. Alternatively, write the following questions on the board.
o    Whose is the shoe and how did it get there?
o    Where was the little girl going to?
o    Does she live near here?
o    How did she lose the shoe?
o    Who found it?
o    Did she get her shoe back?
o    Did her parents go out again and look for it?
In pairs, students use the questions to invent the story of how the girl lost her shoe and what happened to it. They should do this orally, though they can write notes.
When they are ready, pairs join to make groups of four or six and share their stories. Invite some pairs to share their stories with the class.

Homework

Students write the story that they invented in Task 3.

Transcript

I took this photo in June 2012, in London. Um, it was quite early in the morning, and I was on the way to the college. I'm a teacher, I teach adults, ah, English, so obviously it was a weekday, but I don't remember if it was a Monday or a Thursday or... you know. And, um, I took it not far from where I live, in the south of London, um, at the traffic lights, near my usual bus stop, where I get the bus to work every day. I'm not exactly certain why I took the photo, it was a spontaneous thing, I didn't think about it really. I mean, I just saw the little shoe sitting there, pink and plastic, and it caught my attention. I had my mobile phone in my pocket, so... modern art.
It's something that I see every day with something that I don't see every day; it's something that's normal and something that's not very normal, that's more unusual – a child's shoe on the button for pedestrians at the zebra crossing, well, the traffic lights. And that's why I took it, why I took the photo. And I started to think about, you know, the story, the story behind it. Whose is the shoe and how did it get there? Where was the little girl going to? I imagine it was a little girl. Does she live near here? How did she lose the shoe? Who found it? And and then, did she get her shoe back? Did her parents go out again and look for it? I mean, it was easy to see it at the traffic lights. That was a good idea, it was a good place to leave it.
Anyway, I thought it'd be an interesting photo to talk about with my students. We sometimes use photographs to, um, start some story-telling activities, or to talk about what we did or saw at the weekend, that sort of thing. Do you ever do that?