Why a sausage can do what your glove cannot

In this Upper-Intermediate lesson plan, students will learn different phrases to talk about the future: be about to, be due to, etc. They will also enlarge their understanding of touchscreens and learn vocabulary related to electricity and touchscreen technology.

Warm-up

The lesson starts with a warm-up activity in which the student tries to guess which items on the list can be used to operate a touchscreen (glove, sausage, toothbrush, shoe, etc.). Then, they share their knowledge of touchscreens with the teacher by answering the questions.

Video: Why a sausage can do what your glove cannot

The student watches the video: Why a sausage can do what your glove cannot and learns how touchscreens actually work. They answer the questions about the video and sort out the characteristics of resistive and capacitive touchscreens. They match the words used in the video with their meanings (unwieldy, resistive, dominate, etc.) and use them to complete sentences. 

The student then explains the functions of the most common controls of touchscreens (tap, swipe, scroll, etc.).

Grammar: Phrases to talk about the future

The student learns different phrases to talk about the future (be about to, be due to, be on the brink of, etc.). They practice alternative ways of expressing the future by choosing the correct expressions and rephrasing sentences using the words in parentheses.

Finally, the student revises what they learned by saying why and where touchscreens are commonly used.