It’s a good day for a party, isn’t it? – A2 Listening Part 5

The older you get, the more you appreciate party food! Revise food vocabulary, and talk about the perfect party food, all while practising KEY Cambridge Listening Part 5.

Here comes yet another lesson plan based on the free Cambridge resources. This time I decided to target the A2 level and combine a short listening with a grammar class on question tags. If you are interested in similar lesson plans based on authentic Cambridge exams, you can take a look at my other post A2 – Reading Part 2.

To get the lesson plan with all the exercises and answers, scroll down and get your copy. You can find the original KEY Listening Part 5, including the audio by downloading either A2 Key Handbook or Sample Papers for A2 Key.

The class starts by looking at four pictures of different party foods. Students describe the type of food they see (junk food, pastry, sandwiches and fruit). Discuss which of these foods they enjoy eating at parties and if it’s a common practice to bring food or cook for parties.

Before the listening, show pictures of foods mentioned in the recording. Students write the names of foods. Elicit the words mentioned in the exam task, but you can also think of their synonyms. In this way, students will start being aware of words being different in the exam task and on the recording. Finish this activity by checking the spelling and also choosing the three best and worst foods to bring to the party. This exercise could help students with listening for justifications of choices in the recording.

It is also worth mentioning that in the exam, students will not be presented with pictures – words only. Therefore, the exam situation may be a bit more complicated. Explain the rules of Cambridge Key Listening Part 5. Students listen to a conversation between two people talking about a certain topic – in this case, the party food. They need to match five people with one of the eight options each. There is always an example done for them, which removes one of the options. Two of them aren’t used at all.

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Once you finish this exercise, discuss the answers and put them in the table, mentioning the answers that were mentioned, but not selected. It can help students focus on the options which were rejected, and understand that they are all mentioned, so it’s necessary to pay attention to details.

Write down three sentences from the recording used to explain grammar – question tags. Make sure to pay attention to different tenses used in the examples and the structure of the question tag: auxiliary verb (not) + subject + question mark. The one curious thing shown in the listening was the use of everyone. It is a third singular person in the main sentence, but it is ‘they’ in the question tag.

Everyone gets hungry, don’t they?
He likes cooking, doesn’t he?
He’s coming, isn’t he?

You can practise the form by going in the circle and asking the questions using the answers from the table. For example, Maria is going to bring bread, isn’t she? – No, she isn’t. She’s going to bring a cake or Peter bought chicken, didn’t he? – Yes, he did. It’ll give a chance to speak up and quickly think about different question tag forms. Give students some thinking time by letting them complete ten questions and writing appropriate question tags.

Finish the class by putting students into pairs. Each student has a list of foods and people. They ask each other questions, using question tags and guess who brings which item to the party. Listen to your students and provide them with speaking feedback at the end of the lesson.