English as a lingua franca
Lesson plan overview
This ESL worksheet is perfect as the first lesson of a course. Students talk about languages, learn what English as a lingua franca is as well as collocations and expressions to talk about their language abilities and complete a checklist with tips on how to improve their English skills. You can combine it with the following worksheet: “Idioms: moving abroad“, as well as the lesson “The secrets to effective learning“.
The first activity is a quiz on languages – students can be divided into teams and do the activity as a competition. Then students learn common expressions about languages (mother tongue, language barrier, body language, in plain English). Then they practise their newly-learned vocabulary by using the questions given as conversation starters.
Listening: Students watch a video “English as a lingua franca” and take notes about different points made by the speakers. In a post-listening discussion they express their opinions about the points made in the video.
Vocabulary development: Students learn different expressions to talk about their language abilities (be fluent in, brush up on, pick up, get by) and use them to talk about their own abilities.
The worksheet concludes with a “Improve your English checklist” – students are given different tips and with a partner they talk about which of the tips they follow and how to incorporate more English in their lives.
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.
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:
To send the pre-class activities to your students, copy the link below.
In-class activities
Conversation cards PDF
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.
Teacher’s lesson plan
Student’s worksheet
Student’s interactive PDF
Conversation cards PDF
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