Our Love Affair with Cats

This upper-intermediate speaking lesson uses people’s love of cats to help students practice expressing opinions, debating different viewpoints, and having natural conversations about pets and animal relationships. Students will work on discussion skills, agreeing and disagreeing, and explaining their thoughts clearly through various speaking activities.

Opening Discussion

The lesson begins with students sharing their personal thoughts and experiences with cats.

Video Analysis

Students watch an interesting video titled “Why Humans Are Obsessed with Cats” that explores the psychological and cultural reasons behind our fascination with these animals. After watching, they discuss the main ideas from the video using structured phrases that help them express their thoughts clearly. This activity gives them practice with both listening comprehension and speaking about more complex topics.

Opinion and Debate Practice

The main speaking section includes several different activities designed to build discussion skills. Students start by reading various statements about cats and practice agreeing or disagreeing while giving clear reasons for their opinions. Then they challenge themselves by choosing three statements and trying to argue for the opposite view, which helps them think flexibly and practice persuasive language.

Next, students talk about their cat preferences using guided questions that help them describe what they like or dislike about different types of cats. They also work with cat-related vocabulary by sorting words into different categories and explaining why they made those choices. Finally, they practice conversations about different cat-related situations using helpful expressions that make their discussions flow more naturally.

Discussion

The lesson wraps up with students reading about famous cats on social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok, then having a discussion about this modern phenomenon.

This upper-intermediate lesson uses the popular topic of cats to help students practice essential speaking skills like expressing opinions, agreeing and disagreeing respectfully, and participating in natural discussions. The variety of activities keeps students engaged while giving them lots of opportunities to practice the kind of conversational English they’ll use in real-life situations.