The Ups and Downs of Expat Life

The main goals of this ESL lesson plan are to:

• – develop C1-level vocabulary,
• – enhance students’ speaking fluency,
• – improve discussion skills.

This advanced speaking lesson explores the challenges and rewards of expat life through debates, scenarios, and discussion activities.

Warm-up:

The lesson starts with students discussing the pros and cons of expat life.

Video:

Students watch a video called “These American Expats Spend $2,100 A Month Living In Spain.” Afterward, they discuss the key ideas from the video using helpful phrases.

Speaking Activities:

Students look at different scenarios and discuss the advantages and disadvantages in each case. They then talk about which approaches lead to a better expat experience.  In the following exercise, students debate a statement about living abroad with their teacher. Next, learners discuss the advantages and disadvantages of keeping ties with their home country when living abroad. In the fifth exercise, the students discuss how they would behave in a set of predefined scenarios. Next, they choose which of the opposing approaches to living in a foreign country work best and why. Finally, the learners interpret sayings about expat life.

Discussion:

The lesson concludes with students debating the pros and cons of expat life using a word cloud.