| LESSON OVERVIEW
The main objectives of this ESL lesson on birthdays are to:
- identify and discuss types of celebrations;
- practise vocabulary related to birthdays;
- watch a video about celebrating birthdays on a budget and talk about personal perspectives.
With this lesson, students talk about different types of celebrations and their personal experiences. They watch and discuss a video about celebrating someone’s birthday on a budget and talk about birthday celebration ideas. Students also practise phrases related to birthdays (e.g. feel special, decorate the house, mark the occasion, etc.), express their opinions on the topic, complete sentences with their ideas, and brainstorm ways to celebrate their friends’ birthdays.
B1 / Intermediate60 minStandard LessonPremium Plan
VIDEO AND CELEBRATIONS
As a warm-up to this ESL lesson on birthdays, students look at the pictures, name three types of celebration (a Christmas party, a Halloween party and a wedding) and discuss their personal experiences and perspectives on celebrations. After that, they watch a video about celebrating someone’s birthday without spending a lot of money and complete gaps to check their comprehension. Then, students watch the video again and note examples of each activity (cook their favourite breakfast food, write ‘words of affirmation’ and do something fun that they enjoy). Then, they discuss questions about birthday celebration ideas, budget constraints, common practices, and gift-giving norms.
VOCABULARY & DISCUSSION
At this point in this ESL lesson on birthdays, students read opinions about birthdays and choose the correct words to complete phrases related to the topic (e.g. blow out the candles, make a wish, birthday cards, etc.). Afterwards, they talk about which opinion on birthdays is most similar to their own and explain it. Following that, students complete sentences about reflections and practices of birthday celebrations and traditions. Then, they choose four of them to comment on. Next, students analyse pairs of possibilities, choose how they would rather spend their birthday and explain their answers. Finally, they imagine people with different backgrounds are their friends and brainstorm what they would do to celebrate each of their birthdays and make them feel special.
HOMEWORK/REVISION
This lesson also includes an additional task that you can use as homework or revision. In the task, students complete dialogues using phrases related to birthdays and choose three dialogues to continue by adding an extra line. 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.
Subscribe to unlock these and many other Standalone lesson with the Premium planWORKSHEETS
There’s a mistake in E-lesson plan, page 13. It should be “feel special” not “be special”.
And that’s the way we see it displayed. I think that the issue might be due to the browser/screen resolution you use. Can you contact us directly with info about the OS, browser version and screen resolution you have? And we will check that out.
how come the video is unavailable for me?
Hi there! The link works OK on our side, could you contact our team at [email protected] and describe the problem to us? Thanks!