New Year’s resolutions
Lesson plan overview
This intermediate ESL lesson plan deals with the topic of New Year’s resolutions and building habits. Students will learn useful vocabulary and expressions, will talk about their habits, goals, resolutions, and how to achieve them. It can be combined with the lessons “End of the year reflection”, “How to set effective language-learning goals”, “Idioms: New Year”, “Idioms: goals”,
Speaking: The lesson starts with a short discussion on New Year traditions. Then, students brainstorm common New Year’s resolutions for 5 different categories. After that, they divide the resolutions given into the correct category.
Useful expressions: Next, students take a look at 9 photos, and guess what each person’s New Year’s resolution is. They are given useful expressions to talk about New Year’s resolutions (e.g. This year, I’ll…, My goal for the upcoming year is to…, In the new year, I plan to…, I aim to … in the coming year.) to complete with the correct resolution. Then, they use the same phrases to write down their personal resolutions.
Vocabulary: Students learn verb+noun collocations with the words “goal”, “habit”, “routine”, and “New Year’s resolutions”. They are given a multiple-choice task, where 1 of the verbs doesn’t collocate with the noun given. They need to identify the incorrect verb.
To practice, students complete 8 conversation questions with the correct verb. This activity also serves as a pre-listening discussion.
Listening: Students watch a video called “How to make New Year’s resolutions that last”. And complete 2 listening comprehension activities. Then they engage in a post-listening discussion.
Speaking: Next, students choose one of their New Year’s resolutions and are tasked with creating an action plan. They are given useful phrases to incorporate (e.g. To achieve this, my plan is to …, I will start by …, The first step is to …). After that, in pairs, students take turns to share one of their New Year’s resolutions, and for their partner to give them a tip on how it can be achieved.
Vocabulary review: Finally, students complete a vocabulary review task.
For more speaking practice, and to review key vocabulary from this lesson, you can use the printable conversation cards.
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Teacher’s lesson plan
Student’s worksheet
Student’s interactive PDF
Conversation cards PDF
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:
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In-class activities
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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