Moving House: How to Make It Easier
Lesson plan overview
This ESL worksheet focuses on moving house and practical English for relocating to a new home. It is most suitable for B1-level learners. Students learn useful collocations for preparing for a move, practise talking about moving experiences, work with a moving house checklist, watch and discuss a moving house video, and develop language for dealing with common moving-day problems, leaving a rented property and getting a rental deposit back. Other lessons you might like are “Being a good neighbor“, “Neighbour disputes“, and “Buying a home“.
Vocabulary: Moving House Collocations
The worksheet begins with questions about students’ previous experiences of moving house. Then, students then learn and practise useful collocations connected with moving house, such as book a removal company, pack your belongings, wrap fragile items, label boxes, and more.
Speaking: Moving House Checklist
Students create their own moving house checklist and decide what needs to be done at different stages of the moving process. They organise tasks for 6–8 weeks, 2–4 weeks, and 1 week before moving, as well as for moving day, using vocabulary from the previous activity alongside their own ideas. Learners then compare their checklists with a partner, discuss when different tasks should be completed, and share useful ideas they had not considered. After that, they discuss practical questions about moving house.
Listening: Moving House Checklist and Timeline
Students watch a video called “Moving house checklist and timeline” about what to do before and during a move and use a moving house checklist to predict missing information before watching. The activity covers tasks at different stages of the move. Learners then check their predictions against the video.
Speaking: Moving Day Disasters
Students discuss a series of realistic moving-day problems and consider how they would respond. Learners also share whether they have experienced similar problems, encouraging them to use practical language while discussing solutions and personal experiences.
Speaking: Keep or Get Rid of It?
Learners decide what they would do with a range of belongings when moving house: keep, sell, donate, throw away, or leave undecided. Students explain their choices using useful expressions such as “I’d hold on to it because…”, “I’d get rid of it because…”, “I couldn’t bring myself to throw it away”, and “It might come in handy one day.” They then add their own items and ask a partner what they would do with them.
Speaking: Leaving a Rented Property and Getting Your Deposit Back
The final activity focuses on moving out of a rented property and getting a rental deposit back. Students discuss the condition a property should be left in, share experiences of disagreements with landlords about deposits, and evaluate different situations to decide whether keeping some or all of a tenant’s deposit might be justified.
For more speaking practice, you can use the printable conversation 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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