The World Stage at Davos: Influence and Impact
Lesson plan overview
This ESL lesson explores Davos 2026 and the World Economic Forum, focusing on global leadership, geopolitical tensions, artificial intelligence, and economic inequality. Through a combination of listening, reading, speaking, vocabulary, and reflection activities, students develop critical thinking skills while expanding their academic and real-world English. The lesson is ideal for upper-intermediate to advanced learners interested in current affairs, global politics, and business English.
Activtiies Overview:
1. Lead-in: Learners discuss world summits, who attends them, and why they matter.
2. Pre-listening vocabulary: Students begin by matching key vocabulary from the video (e.g. gather, collapse, fallout, behind closed doors) with their definitions. To practice, they complete a gap-fill activity.
3. Listening: “What Is Davos?”
Students watch a short explanatory video about Davos and the World Economic Forum. They answer comprehension questions focusing on participants, purpose, influence, and criticism of the event. Then they discuss a few questions given.
4. Reading: Davos 2026 Article
Students read an in-depth article on Davos 2026, examining geopolitical conflict and US–European tensions over Greenland.
5. Speaking: Critical Discussion
Students engage in structured speaking tasks exploring:
- Whether Davos is an effective platform for solving global problems
The impact of Western dominance at the forum
The relevance of Davos topics to everyday people
These tasks promote debate, justification of opinions, and extended speaking.
6. Vocabulary Development
Students match advanced expressions from the article (e.g. clash, turmoil, imminent threat, wreak havoc, white-collar jobs) to definitions, then use them in sentence-completion activities to reinforce meaning and usage.
7. Practice & Personalization
Learners complete open-ended sentences using new vocabulary and use them as conversation starters with a partner, helping transfer passive knowledge into active use.
For more speaking practice, you can use the printable conversation cards.
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Teacher’s lesson plan
Student’s worksheet
Student’s interactive PDF
Conversation cards PDF
Pre-class activities
All video-based ESL lesson plans include online pre-class activities, which are FREE and can be completed without registration. Perfect for teachers who wish to embrace the blended learning approach. By providing students with resources and engagement opportunities before the actual class session, educators can foster active participation, enhance comprehension, and optimise in-class discussions.
The pre-class activities are optional: if you choose not to assign them, or your students don’t complete them, it will not disturb the flow of the class. You can find and review the pre-class activities for this lesson plan here:
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In-class activities
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Additional resources
Each video-based lesson plan includes links to additional resources (videos and articles), which are FREE can be found online (in the pre-class activities page. These links aim to extend the learning experience, enabling students to connect classroom knowledge with real-world applications.
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Teacher’s lesson plan
Student’s worksheet
Student’s interactive PDF
Conversation cards PDF
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