Skills we use and skills we lose

Rawan | Dec 14, 2025Dec 12, 2025

LESSON OVERVIEW

The main objectives of this lesson are to:

• talk about skills and the impact of technology on them;
• practise collocations and phrases for talking about skills;
• watch a video about whether AI is making us dumb. 

With this lesson, students work with common collocations with ‘skills’ (e.g. skills deteriorate, advanced skills, specialized skills) and share opinions on learning and improving skills. They talk about how skills change over time, watch a video about AI and Microsoft’s study and debate responsible use of AI. Students also explore phrases for describing skills (e.g. get the hang of, lose the edge, stay on top of) and discuss their job skills and AI’s impact on them.

WARM-UP AND COLLOCATIONS

This lesson starts with a warm-up. Students engage in talking about skills and discuss the saying ‘If you don’t use it, you will lose it’, giving examples of when it’s true. After that, they complete verbs and adjectives with missing letters to create common collocations with ‘skills’ (e.g. hone skills, skills evolve, core skills). Moving on, students choose five experiences and situations involving skills (e.g. skills could quickly deteriorate if…). They complete them with their ideas and give some details. Following that, students discuss different abilities (e.g. understanding long texts, map reading, making small talk), using questions about the importance of skills. 

VIDEO AND USEFUL PHRASES

Afterwards, they watch a video about AI and Microsoft’s study on it. First, students guess whether sentences (e.g. the use of AI weakens critical thinking) are true or false. They then watch part of the video and check. Then, students watch the second part of the video and complete gaps in sentences about AI. Next, they discuss the video and AI’s impact. After that, students complete sentences with verbs to form phrases for talking about skills (e.g. be rusty, be well versed, brush up on). Moving on, they say to what extent they agree with the points from the previous exercise (e.g. it doesn’t take long to get the hang of working with AI prompts). Students explain their answers. Following that, they do tasks where they discuss their job skills and AI’s impact on them, using the target phrases from the lesson.

HOMEWORK/REVISION

This lesson also includes an additional task that you can use as homework or revision. In the task, students correct mistakes in sentences talking about skills. They then finish the sentences with their ideas, using the target vocabulary from the lesson. The task is available in the teacher’s version of the worksheet. You can print it and hand it out to your students. It’s also included in the e-lesson plan.

WORKSHEETS

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