Linguistic detectives

The main goals of this ESL lesson plan are to:

• – Explore forensic linguistics through videos about language analysis in criminal investigations while building specialized vocabulary for legal contexts in this c1 lesson plan.
• – Develop language analysis skills through sentence completion exercises and reading comprehension about linguistic evidence in court proceedings for advanced esl lessons.
• – Create legal dialogues between defense attorneys and forensic linguists while engaging in discussions about controversial language analysis cases using these english teaching materials for adult english lessons.

This C1-level lesson focuses on developing language skills through the engaging topic of forensic linguistics, exploring how language analysis is used in criminal investigations and legal proceedings.

Warm-up 

Students discuss whether they agree or disagree with certain opinions and explain why.

Video 

Students watch an informative video titled “How Language Nerds Solve Crimes.” After viewing, they complete a matching exercise connecting sentence beginnings with appropriate endings based on the video content.

Exercises 

Language skills are reinforced through various activities. Students complete the gaps in sentences with correct words. In the second exercise, they complete sentences so that they have similar meanings to the original sentences. Finally, students read scenarios about the use of forensic linguistics and identify the primary factors that led to the controversy.

Writing

Together with the teacher, students create two dialogues between a defense attorney and a forensic linguist discussing linguistic evidence cases. 

Reading 

Students read a text about forensic linguistics and answer questions about the text to test their reading comprehension.

Discussion 

The students rearrange the words to form questions, then answer them.