Here are a bunch of ideas for teaching about family and friends. Activities are organized under different headings, but some can be used at various stages of a lesson, and adapted to other lessons too. Choose the activities that you feel suit you and, most importantly, your students best. Arrange them in a lesson plan as you see fit alongside your own activities. Be sure to give students as much help with the target expressions/language as they need. Feel free to improve the example handouts as much as you like.

Greeting/Introduction Ideas:

1.)     ALT and JTE perform a short dialog regarding their families and friends, or just those of the ALT.

2.)     ALT tells the class about a recent phone conversation with a family member/friend.

3.)     ALT and JTE do a very brief survey of brothers and sisters, e.g., "Raise your hand if you have 2 brothers", "Who has an older sister?" etc.

Warm-ups/Vocab Activities:

Friendly Greetings:
Teach more casual greetings that you use with your friends and family. Have the students practice it. Some of them can practice with you.

Family Vocab Quiz:
Prepare long definitions of family members, e.g. "my father's brother's daughter" and have the students guess the answer, e.g. "cousin". You may need to help them with the vocab first.

Family Pictures:
Take some blown up family pictures into class and use them to tell the students about your family. JTE encourages the students to ask questions. Teach important vocab and expressions that arise.

Family Tree Read and Run:
See below.

Practice Activities:

Personality Profiles:
Take some blown up pictures of random individuals (photos or cut-outs from magazines) to class, stick them on the blackboard and number them. Have the students create an imaginary profile for one of them. Then, students work in pairs and use their profile to describe the person to their partner who must try to guess which picture they are talking about. Students then switch roles. Students need to be quite creative with this activity and so will need some time to make the profiles first. Here is an example handout. The pictures could also be members of your family and you could give your students the real profile afterwards.

Family Member Profiles:
Students work in pairs, telling their partner about 1 family member or friend. Their partner draws a portrait and fills in a profile of the family member being described, asking questions if necessary. Then they swap. Some students may not want to describe their whole family, for whatever reason, including family problems. This activity bypasses that problem by concentrating on a fuller description of just one person, but students may need help first with the language needed for descriptions. Here is an example handout.

The ALT's Family Profiles:
Students work in small groups. Each group is assigned one member of the ALT's family. Students in each group must then takes turns to go to the ALT and ask a question about that family member, return to the group and give the answer. The group as a whole must make a profile or spider chart of that family member. Each group can then describe the family member to the rest of the class. Eventually, the class will have a full picture of the ALT's family (if the ALT doesn't mind!).

Who am I?:
Have students describe a famous person to their partner who must try to guess who it is. Here is an example handout.

Consolidation/Filler Activities:

My Family Tree:
Have students draw a basic, properly labeled family tree (their own or an imagined one, or that of the ALT). You can have them make it as detailed as you like, e.g. include age, hobbies, favorite food etc.

More Vocab:
Teach more detailed vocab, such as in-laws and step-relatives etc. and also extra vocab such as nan, nana, granny for grandmother.

Advanced Activities:

Many of the above activities can be made more challenging simply by making them more detailed.

Debate/discussion:
Topics include gender, housework and the division of labor, the changing role of the family, the family in Japan and in the ALT's home country.

Skits:
Students work in small groups. Each group is given a family dilemma, which they will hopefully solve. They must write and perform a skit about this family dilemma.

Easier Activities:

Many of the practice activities can be made easier by making them less detailed.

Family Tree Read and Run:
Students work in pairs or small groups. Make a handout with your basic family tree on it, with some info blanked out. Post clues to the missing info around the room (e.g. "My mother's name is Heather. She likes walking"). Students take turns to find a clue, read and understand it, and tell their partner(s). Together, the students fill in the whole family tree. You can make this activity as detailed, or not, as you like. It involves all 4 skills at a very basic level. You can make it a competition with the first team to finish as the winner. Afterwards, you can tell them about your family, perhaps using pictures. Note though, that this activity does not involve students in producing anything/much, which should be your ultimate aim if possible.