Minority languages
Lesson plan overview
This intermediate ESL lesson is dedicated to minority languages and endangered languages. Students will learn useful expressions and discuss the importance of preserving minority languages, cultural heritage, and the relationship between language and identity. It can be combined with other lessons about learning languages, such as “How to set effective language learning goals”, “English as a lingua franca”, and “Idioms: learning and education”, as well as other lessons about culture, such as “Costumes are not cultures (cultural appropriation)“.
Speaking: The lesson starts with a discussion about minority languages and student’s experience with minority languages.
Vocabulary: Students complete 12 expressions related to minority languages (language preservation, language revitalization, cultural heritage, endangered languages, language extinction, cultural assimilation). To practise, students choose the correct option to complete 7 sentences.
Speaking: First, students brainstorm possible situations in which people might decide to switch from their minority language to a more dominant language. Then they look at 4 situations and discuss them.
Listening: Students watch a video called “Why do languages die?” and answer 6 questions.
Speaking: Students are asked to design a revitalization campaign for a minority language of their choice. After that, they discuss 8 questions given. Finally, students are given an essay task, which could be set as homework.
You can use the conversation cards to revise the target vocabulary and to further discuss the topic.
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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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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:
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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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