Carpooling and carsharing

This lesson is great for learning about and discussing a very relatable topic: urban mobility. Students will learn a lot of useful vocabulary, will watch 3 short videos and will have plenty of opportunities to speak using conversation questions and role-plays. You can combine it with the lesson “How green are electric cars?“, and “Phrasal verbs: transportation“, as well as other city-related lessons, such as “Gentrification“.

The lesson begins with a discussion about cars, the advantages and disadvantages of owning a car and the different costs associated with having a car. A lot of relevant vocabulary is introduced here (driving licence, fuel, insurance, congestion charge, maintenance).

Vocabulary: students learn important verbs to use when renting a car (e.g. pick up,hand over, drop off) and then practise using them in a role play activity about renting a car. Next, students learn important expressions related to urban mobility (e.g. daily commute, rush hour, traffic congestion). They use these expressions to complete the questions given and then discuss the questions in pairs.

Listening: The first 3 activities pre-teach the vocabulary students will hear in the videos. This lesson plan features 3 short videos with a combined length of about 5 minutes, introducing 3 innovative ideas about sustainable urban mobility: Scoop: Convenient and Enjoyable Carpooling; How car sharing can help cities reach net zero targets, GoDrive, Car Sharing – Tapping into the ‘No Strings Economy’ Students complete a gap-fill, a True/False and a note-taking activity.

Speaking: The last 2 activities are speaking activities. First students discuss the ideas they saw in the videos, answering different questions. Then they work in small groups and brainstorm ideas on how urban mobility could be improved in their city.

To keep learning outside of the classroom, 3 research topics are suggested as homework. Students are also encouraged to follow-up this lesson with the additional materials provided on theenglishflows.com