Who not to fall in love with

In this C2 lesson plan, your advanced ESL students will:

• – develop their advanced English vocabulary related to personality traits and relationship dynamics by using authentic materials;
• – improve their listening skills, reading comprehension, and boost their English vocabulary by completing several challenging activities such as word-definition matching, gap-fills, and discussions;
• – engage in discussion activities and critical thinking exercises about toxic relationship patterns, based on a video about people not to fall in love with.

In this advanced ESL lesson, your students will practice using advanced English vocabulary related to personality traits and relationship dynamics. They will improve their English listening skills by watching an authentic video on “who not to fall in love with”, and their reading comprehension by answering questions about a text on toxic relationships. Students are also encouraged to use new language from the lesson in challenging discussion activities.

Warm-up:

Students start with some conversation practice, using thought-provoking discussion questions about relationship difficulties. This will help to activate their prior knowledge, and get them engaged. Students are encouraged to give reasons or examples to support their answers, and to ask the teacher questions. By doing so, they make it easier to keep a natural conversation flow going.

Video:

Students watch a video called “People not to fall in love with: a checklist.” They then complete a gap-fill exercise based on the video content, which features new English vocabulary for them to use in later discussion activities and conversation practice. While watching the video, students should note down any new phrases that they catch, and ask their teacher about them afterwards. Students are encouraged to think about how they could apply the phrases to their own experiences.

Exercises:

Students strengthen their English vocabulary skills by working though word-definition matching exercises and gap-fill activities using target vocabulary. Students are encouraged to confirm their understanding with the teacher, and to think of their own examples using the new words. Students should make a note of any phrases that they think would be particularly useful in their own lives, and try to use them in later conversation practice activities.

Reading:

Students answer challenging English reading comprehension questions about an authentic text on toxic relationships. The activity uses several expressions which are common among native speakers, but may be unfamiliar to even advanced ESL students. Students are encouraged to ask questions about unfamiliar expressions and to use the vocabulary from this exercise in subsequent discussion activities. This can be either vocabulary from the exercise, or just from elsewhere in the text.

Discussion:

Students express their opinions about a selection of discussion topics with their teacher using new English vocabulary that they have acquired during the lesson. To keep the conversation practice going, students are also encouraged to ask their teacher questions, too. Students practice giving and responding to opinions, and asking follow-up questions to get more information. The aim of this discussion activity is to consolidate what students have learned, and use it in a realistic English conversation with their teacher. During this stage of the lesson, the teacher focuses on the student’s fluency rather than accuracy, noting down any errors that need to be addressed to revisit after the activity is completed. By doing so, the student and teacher can maintain a realistic, natural conversation flow which will help to improve the student’s confidence when using English in real-life situations.