Hantavirus: How worried should we be?
Lesson plan overview
Teach real-world English with this breaking news ESL worksheet about the recent hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship. It is most suitable for B1 level learners and is ideal for lessons on health and infectious diseases. Students build essential vocabulary related to symptoms, transmission and public health responses. Other lessons you might like are “Will there be another pandemic in your lifetime?” and “Phrasal verbs: health“.
Speaking: Lead-in and Discussion
The lesson begins with a discussion about diseases and viruses in the news, what students already know about hantavirus, which animals carry infectious diseases, why outbreaks spread quickly today, and how COVID-19 changed attitudes toward illness.
Vocabulary: Infectious Diseases and Public Health Terms
Learners complete a timeline of the outbreak using key vocabulary such as “disembark”, “evacuate”, “quarantine”, and “repatriate”. After that, students learn and practise key expressions such as outbreak, transmissible, strain, incubation period, severe, mild, and contact tracing. Activities include matching words to synonyms and completing sentences in context.
Listening: Hantavirus – Everything You Need to Know
Students watch a video called “Hantavirus: Everything You need to know” and complete listening comprehension notes by filling in missing information about symptoms, incubation period, animal carriers, treatment availability, and risk levels.
Speaking: Ranking Public Health Situations
Students engage in a post-listening discussion, and then rank 7 public health scenarios from not concerning (1) to very concerning (5) using vocabulary from the lesson. They explain their reasoning in small groups.
For more speaking practice, you can use the printable discussion cards.
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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
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Student’s interactive PDF
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