| LESSON OVERVIEW
The main objectives of this ESL lesson on communication styles are to:
- discuss different ways to communicate;
- practise adjectives for describing communication styles;
- watch a video excerpt about why the Dutch are so direct.
In this lesson, students explore an expression about speaking honestly and directly, read about different personal communication styles and work with useful adjectives (e.g. assertive, blunt, reserved). They talk about people they know, discuss handling awkward dilemmas and watch part of a video about communication styles. Students also reflect on conversational directness across cultures, work in pairs and share their opinions.
WARM-UP AND VOCABULARY
This ESL lesson on communication styles starts with a warm-up. Students look at the expression ‘say what you mean and mean what you say’ and discuss its idea and its importance. After that, they read the descriptions of four people. Then, students complete the definitions of adjectives in the texts by choosing the correct options. Moving on, they examine the descriptions from the previous task again and think of someone they know who is similar to each person. Students give examples that illustrate their attitude. Afterwards, they read situations and questions involving awkward social and professional dilemmas. Students choose the correct adjectives to complete possible responses. Following that, they answer the questions in each situation, giving reasons.
VIDEO AND DISCUSSION
In this part of this ESL lesson on communication styles, students watch a video excerpt on the topic and identify its main purpose. Afterwards, they read questions related to differences in communication styles and social expectations. Students choose the correct answer according to the video. They then watch part of the video again and check their answers. Moving on, students discuss questions about cultural directness and communication styles. After that, they work in pairs. Students look at different situations and choose one. They debate opposing communication styles using two contrasting adjectives and explain why. Students swap roles, choose a different situation and repeat.
HOMEWORK/REVISION
This ESL lesson on communication styles also includes an additional task that you can use as homework or revision. In the task, students read questions and choose the adjectives that best describe responses. They then write a second response in the style of the other adjective. 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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There are some broken lines and designs and wrong answers on this lesson :-/
Hi, can you explain the problems in more detail?
I noticed a few design/layout issues in one of the lesson decks and wanted to let you know.
The content and answers appear to be correct, but some of the green answer-highlight boxes seem to be misaligned. In a few cases, the highlight appears over words that were not selected, while the actual answer is only partially highlighted. For example, on the vocabulary slide with the word reserved, the green highlight appears over the beginning of the sentence rather than over doesn’t like. On another slide, the highlight for item 7 appears over situations instead of a careful, and in item 8 the highlight is positioned over negative feelings instead of an indirect.
I also noticed that on the answer-checking slide, some highlight boxes are much larger than the answer text and extend well beyond the selected option, which makes the layout look slightly off. It looks like a formatting issue rather than a content issue.
Thanks for your excellent materials and for taking a look at this!
Thanks for your kind words! 🙂 To ensure that the e-lesson displays correctly, please use Google Slides and one of the following browsers: Chrome, Safari, Firefox or Opera.
That is what I have been doing. The error persists.
Thanks for getting back to me. I can confirm the issue is still happening in both Chrome and Safari when viewing the Google Slides version of the lesson.
To make it easier to identify, here are the exact slides and items affected:
Slide 7 (Part 1/2 – “Let’s check the answers”)
* Item 3: The green highlight is positioned over the words “Someone who is reserved” instead of the correct answer (“doesn’t like”).
* Item 4: The green highlight appears over “If you” instead of the correct answer (“very”).
Slide 8 (Part 2/2 – “Let’s check the answers”)
* Item 5: The green highlight is correctly on “not very clear”, but the box is noticeably larger than the text and extends beyond the answer area.
* Item 6: The green highlight appears over the word “straightforward” instead of the correct answer (“directly”).
* Item 7: The green highlight appears over “situations” instead of the correct answer (“a careful”).
* Item 8: The green highlight appears over “negative feelings” instead of the correct answer (“an indirect”).
Slide 15 (Part 2/3 – “Let’s check the answer”)
* In item 2, the yellow answer box is vertically misaligned and overlaps the line below it.
Slide 29 (Part 2/2 – “Let’s check the answers”)
* The green highlight for question D is positioned over option 1 (“know stereotypes about other cultures”) even though the correct answer is option 2 (“make much better connections”).
These look like formatting/alignment issues rather than content issues, as the answer boxes seem to have shifted position relative to the text. The problem is consistent across browsers on my side.
I hope this helps pinpoint the issue.
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Great lesson! Straightforward to teach and good links to other topics and related vocab. My students have enjoyed this one a lot. Thanks Joe!
Glad you enjoyed it! 🙂