Can you trust online reviews?

This upper-intermediate to advanced lesson plan explores the topic of fake reviews. Students learn relevant vocabulary and idioms, practise listening by watching a short video and have various opportunities to speak and share their opinions and personal experiences about online shopping and reviews.

Speaking and vocabulary: The worksheet starts with an initial discussion about online reviews. Students share their opinions about the reliability of online reviews and which sites they use to read reviews. In the pre-listening vocabulary activity, students learn a few words and expressions (e.g. a red flag, get a leg up, stand out) by matching sentences with similar meanings. After that they practise the expressions by completing different questions and then have a conversation with a partner using the questions as prompts.

Listening: Students watch a video: “How to spot the fake reviews on Amazon”  and take notes about 8 questions. After that, students share their opinions about the video.

Collocations: This worksheet concludes with an activity about collocations (e.g. pay attention, spot a fake review, play a role) which students complete and then say whether or not they agree with the statements.

Homework: 3 research topics are suggested which aim to develop the topic further. The topics, combined with the additional resources provided on theenglishflows.com provide plenty of extra opportunities for contact with topic-related vocabulary in order to reinforce and enrich it.