| LESSON OVERVIEW
In this lesson students practise their listening skills with an engaging video about making small talk in English, learn several phrasal verbs and sharpen their small talk skills through a series of speaking activities.
WARM-UP & VOCABULARY
The warm-up starts with five sentences related to small talk, followed by five gapped phrases explaining the purpose of each sentence. Students’ task is to complete each phrase with one word from a box. Then, they look at a definition of small talk and discuss how the sentences from the first activity might be linked to it. Next, they move on to another set of gapped sentences. They have to come up with the missing prepositions and then brainstorm the synonyms of the phrasal verbs they’ve created (e.g. reach out – contact). Finally, students decide whether they agree or disagree with a few statements concerning small talk and justify their opinions.
VIDEO & LISTENING COMPREHENSION
As a pre-listening task, students discuss five questions about small talk. Then, they watch a video with tips on how to improve this skill and check their answers. They move on to the second listening activity which consists of eight sentences which they have to complete with one missing word each. First, students try to recall the words and then watch the video to check their answers. The listening part is followed by a discussion about the video and leads to the speaking practice. Students choose two topics from a box (e.g. entertainment, food) and create a small talk question for each one. They pair up, ask their partners their questions and have to keep the conversation going for as long as they can.
PRACTISING SMALL TALK IN ENGLISH
To make this lesson as close to real life as possible, you may want to finish it with a role play. Students need to imagine they’re at a wedding party making small talk in English with a guest they’ve just met. They’re given two phrases (there are eight sets of the phrases to choose from) which they have to use during their conversation as casually as possible. Finally, they try to guess which two phrases were on their partner’s card. The lesson plan ends with an additional speaking activity for students to revise the vocabulary they’ve learnt. They have to tell each other what they remember from the video, crossing out the words from a box until they’ve used up all of them.
WORKSHEETS
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YES! Can you read my mind?! I’ve had at least 5 students come to me in the last month asking for practice with small talk 🙂 Thaaaaaank you!
Ha ha, that’s perfect! Maybe some of your students are dreading meeting strangers and making small talk at weddings ? Good luck with your classes!
Great lesson plan. I did it today and it worked really well. The last paired talk activity is hilarious. Love it! Thank you!
Thanks for your feedback 🙂 Planning that last activity was actually a lot of fun for me too 🙂
Thank you so much for the content. The whole website is life saver!
Thanks, Elis. It means a lot 🙂
Hi, great lesson thank you! Do you have a transcript of the video please?
You can find a very good-quality transcript on YouTube. If you don’t know how to access it there, use the guide linked here.
That was lots of fun!
One suggestion – It would be good if the last speaking exercise could be different scenarios too, not just the wedding. In particular, a business setting like at a conference.
Thanks, Audrey! Sure, it can be any scenario where people interact with each other. I would still ask students to use the same phrases, though 🙂