How To Teach Days Of The Week

Days of the week are generally taught very early on in ESL courses so it is important to
incorporate recently studied material into your lessons without overwhelming your students. For
this example, it is assumed that students have studied ordinal numbers !st"!#th$, sub%ects math,
science, art, music, etc$, and the simple present tense.
How To Proceed
!. !
Warm up
&se the start of class as a review of the previous lesson. Students will feel more confident
in a class if you start out with material they have already covered and it will also prepare
them to use that same material later on in the lesson.
'. '
Introduce Days of the Week (vocabulary)
(rite the words unday through aturday on the board one at a time demonstrating
pronunciation and drilling as you go. )ractice the days of the week in order using choral
repetition and then challenge your students by pointing to words out of order to test their
pronunciation as a class and individually.
*. *
Introduce Days of the Week (comprehens!on)
+ell students ,Today is ~- using whatever the day of the week is. +ell them that they go
to school on .onday, +uesday, (ednesday, +hursday and Friday or that they study
English on .onday and (ednesday. &se several very basic examples to give students an
idea of what these words might mean. /sk students for the meaning and translation of
each word. 0t should be easy once they get started.
1. 1
Pract!ce Days of the Week
Do an activity that gives students lots of practice with the days of the week. / card game
such as "o #!sh with days of the week cards would be appropriate to play in groups of
three to four. 0f using the game 2o Fish simplify the dialogue so that a student only has to
look at the person he is asking for a card and say the day of the week while the student
being asking for a card has to say only the day of the week as they hand over the card or
,Go Fish.-
3. 3
Pract!ce $ %ev!ew
0n order to get students warmed up for the next step where they combine their new
vocabulary with previously learned material, conduct a review activity. / good game to
practice listening, reading, and pronunciation re4uires only a set of flashcards for each
group of students. 0deally groups should be three to five students. Since there are only
seven days of the week, perhaps combine days of the week with a review of ordinal
numbers, for example !st"!#th, and a list of sub%ects they study at school. 5nce each
group has a set of cards, ask them to spread the cards, face up, on their desks. Explain the
activity and begin. 6ou will say a word aloud and the first person to repeat the word
correctly and slap the corresponding card gets to keep that card. 7epeat until all the cards
have been gathered. (hoever has the most cards in the class should read aloud all the
cards he collected. 7epeat one or two more times depending on your students8
enthusiasm.
9. 9
Product!on &ombo
/t this point have the students do a pair activity. For example if you create a worksheet
with a school schedule a grid that has .onday to Friday along the top, the numbers one
to seven or eight depending on your school along the left, and sub%ects filled in for each
day and number$ do the following. +each students this structure:
- A: Do you study subject ordinal number period on day of the week?
- : !es" # do$ or %o" # don&t'
;ave two worksheets prepared with different school schedules where only ten or fifteen
classes during the week are the same. /sk students to work together by taking turns
using the model dialogue$ to determine which ten or fifteen classes they have together.
<. <
%ev!ew
Do a final class activity at the end of class to recheck comprehension. /sk your students
true or false 4uestions about their school schedule. For instance if the class studies
English on .ondays and (ednesdays, say ,!ou study (n)lish on Tuesday' True or
False?- or ,!ou )o to school on *unday' True or False?-
/sking students 4uestions about their schedule using the simple present tense is the most basic
way to use days of the week at this early stage. Days of the week w!ll come up t!me and t!me
a'a!n dur!n' the!r (n'l!sh stud!es. (hen your students begin studying other tenses 4uestions
using days of the week as a time reference is common. ,+hat did you do on *unday?- or ,+hat
will you do on Friday?- type 4uestions will continually review their day of the week vocabulary.