| LESSON OVERVIEW
The main objectives of this ESL lesson on texting abbreviations are to:
- discuss texting habits, preferences, and opinions;
- learn and practise common texting abbreviations;
- watch a funny video about passive-aggressive texting.
With this lesson, students talk all about texting! They discuss texting ‘rules’ and share their own preferences and habits when it comes to texting. They watch a funny video about passive-aggressive texting and decode some text messages. They learn lots of texting abbreviations (e.g. dw, nvm, rn) and practise them by writing text messages.
WARM-UP AND VIDEO
This ESL lesson on texting abbreviations begins with a warm-up. Students use their phones to find a text they sent recently and talk about it. Then, students read some scenarios (e.g. making dinner plans, apologising). They explain if they would rather a) call, b) text, or c) text and then call. After that, students discuss general questions about texting. Next, they match halves to create sentences about texting habits. After that, students watch the video. Before watching it, they look at different responses to a text as featured in the video, and say which response(s) might be passive aggressive (e.g. ‘Sure!’ vs ‘Sure…’) Then, they watch the first part of the video and find out. Next, students watch the second part of the video. Students look at another text and match the responses with what they really mean, according to the speaker in the video.
IN-CLASS ACTIVITIES
The ESL lesson on texting abbreviations continues with some discussion questions about the ideas in the video. Then, students read a list of text messages. They work out what the abbreviation in bold might stand for (e.g. idc, btw, bc). They also choose three messages and write a response, using abbreviations where possible. After that, students are given cards with abbreviations. They pick a situation from a list (e.g. asking your partner about dinner plans; telling your partner you’re busy shopping) and write a text message. Their partner picks an abbreviation and responds. Students continue until they have used up all the situations.
HOMEWORK/REVISION
This lesson plan also includes an additional task that you can use as homework or revision. In the task, students read texts and choose the correct abbreviation. Then, they write a response using the abbreviations provided. 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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Hey, the material is great, however e-lesson version can’t load the images. Or is it just a problem on my side? thanks
Hi! We’ve just checked the e-lesson plan and it all works fine on our end. Please, check out again as it might have been some temporary issue 🙂
This looks like a great lesson, can’t wait to use it in my class, I know my students will love it. Thank you!
So nice to hear that! Hope you have a great class 🙂
EXCELLENT, thank you very much!!
Thanks!
Wonderful lesson! Thanks a lot for making it free! I’m sure my students will love it!
Enjoy! We hope you have a great class 🙂
That’s a great class…..my student loved it! Specially because he doesn’t read messages with emotions, so now he’ll observe if people will think he’s being rude.
Glad your student enjoyed! Thanks so much for the feedback 🙂
Thank you! Very useful and lively.
Great to hear, thanks!
I’m using this as a follow-up lesson after working with “The power of social media”; I think they can complement each other quite well. Great lesson, I love the video it features!
Hey,
I am looking for a lesson plan which I can use whenever I have a trail lesson with a student
Can u tell me would this lesson plan be a good choice?
Hi Rosie! You can check out the lessons we usually recommend for teaching new students here, here, here and here. They include a bit of vocabulary, grammar, listening and speaking, which makes it easier to assess a student’s level while keeping the lesson engaging. We also have another lesson of this type coming soon, so stay tuned!
I have some negative feedback about this lesson, the ‘passive-aggressive’ part to be specific.
That part, linguistically isn’t correct, although I understand the need to teach teens who are not native speakers the hip Gen Z slang but, if we’re teaching proper English then that’s not what the period or the exclamation mark mean at all. Plz fix that.
Or take into consideration mentioning the difference between how proper punctuation in English works compared to what GenZ understands/thinks as a joke.
Hi, thanks for your comment!
The lesson is about communication via text messaging. In this type of communication, messages are created quickly and are usually short. Because of this, text messages can sometimes be unclear, especially if they’re only one word long. This makes the purpose of using a specific punctuation mark in a text message subjective. Messages that read ‘Sure.’, ‘Sure!’ or ‘Sure…’ can be perceived differently. And this is what the video is about. It has nothing to do with Gen Z or slang. You can read more about the topic here and here.