Buying a home
Lesson plan overview
This upper-intermediate to advanced ESL lesson focuses on home ownership, and why it is difficult for millennials to get on the property ladder. Students will learn useful vocabulary to talk about renting and buying a property, and will discuss various aspects of owning a home. Other video-based lessons you might find interesting: “Gentrification”, “Inflation and young people”, as well as the worksheets “Phrasal verbs: money”, “Phrasal verbs: investing“, and “Idioms: financial trouble”.
The lesson starts with a speaking activity about millennials and when they do different things in life (e.g. complete education, start working, have children, get married). Then students are asked to compare this to a previous generation. They are also given a few useful expressions to structure their answers (A few decades ago, people tended to … , but nowadays …; It used to be more common for couples to … , but today, …; Unlike the previous generation, who often … , today’s individuals may …; Back in the day, it was typical for people to …).
Vocabulary: Students learn words related to buying and renting a property (e.g. mortgage, deposit/down payment, first-time buyer, seller’s market, buyer’s market; security deposit, landlord/landlady, tenant, rental agreement, eviction, subletting). Students match the words to their definitions. To practise, students complete 2 speaking activities: First, they discuss questions related to buying and renting. Then, they compare buying vs renting.
Reading: Students read about the process of buying a home, and put the different steps in the correct order. They also see a lot of the words learned in the previous activity in context.
Video: Students engage in a pre-listening discussion, and then watch a video called “Why aren’t millennials buying homes?”. They watch the video twice and complete 2 listening comprehension activities.
Speaking: finally, students discuss different types of properties in different neighbourhoods where they live.
For more speaking practice, and to review the target vocabulary from this lesson, you can use the conversation cards.
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Teacher’s lesson plan
Student’s worksheet
Student’s interactive PDF
Conversation cards PDF
Pre-class activities
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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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