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Giving and Understanding Directions

Materials

• Town Map
• Worksheet
• A map of your town or city

This lesson uses a map to teach students to describe where buildings are located and then how to give and understand directions.

Warm Up

Start by asking students where you can buy good vegetables. When they give you the name of a store, ask them where it is. Keep asking similar questions about where to buy movies, sneakers, a suit, paint. When students give you imprecise information, ask them to clarify or if they give wrong information, call them out: "Next to the train station? That's an Italian restuarant. I can't buy shoes at an Italian restaurant." Go through five or ten of these and then tell them that often in English we give locations by saying a street name, and what is nearby, or a cross-street. Give an example from the town using a well-known location, such as: "The Post Office is on Auezova at the corner of Abai, across from Kaztelecom."

Locations

Now hand out the Town Map. Ask students where the following places are, elicting street and corner street and what it is next to or across from:

1. The jewelry store (on First Avenue at the corner of Hill Avenue/next to the women's wear/behind the Italian restaurant)
2. The bar (on Main Street, at the corner of Pine/across from the furniture store/across from the men's store)
3. The police station (on Main/Memorial/First Avenue/next to the Fire Department/across from the book store)
4. The toy store (on Forest Street/Main Street/across from the Chinese restaurant)
5. The movie theater (on Oak Street across from the Book store)
6. The sporting goods store (on First Avenue/next to women's wear)

Now ask the students to tell you where they live, giving the same sort of directions.

Giving Directions

Introduce giving directions by asking a few of them how to go from their home to school. Again aim for precision. If they make a mistake point out where they ended up. In my experience the most common mistake is omitting to say how many blocks or how far, so students say things like: "Left then right" when they mean "left, go two blocks and turn right." You might also introduce the idea of landmarks like street names and important buildings by asking, 'Do you go past the park? or do you turn before that?' Once a few students have tried, hand out the Worksheet. In pairs or indvidiually students should figure out how to get from one place to another. One student should give directions and the other student should mark the path (with a finger or coin or whatever) and point out any mistakes. Then the students should switch places.

Alternatively you could make this a race. See who can find the route fastest AND most accurately.

Now the fun part. Get out the map of your town or city and put it up where the class can see it. Ask for a volunteer to stand up with his back to the map. Ask him how to get from one place to another in your town. They should be fairly well-known places obviously like the museum, airport, train station, park, etc. As he talks, you (or another volunteer) should trace what he says on the town map. When the student is finished describing the route, check if you wound up in the right place. This can lead to big laughs. If he gets it wrong, you can let him trace it on the map and describe the route at the same time, or bring up another volunteer. If you feel really cruel keep each student up until they describe the route perfectly.
Students can test themselves with a map exercise which can be done online or printed out.

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