| LESSON OVERVIEW
The main objectives of this ESL lesson on humanities are to:
- talk about the humanities from a critical perspective;
- practise key verbs for discussing humanities;
- watch a video explaining what the humanities are.
In this lesson, students talk about their school experiences, watch a video about humanities and explore short dialogues. They work with useful verbs (e.g. find out, explore, make sense of), debate possible outcomes of scenarios involving a lack of expertise and discuss school subjects that might help with life goals and projects. Students also talk about the skills the humanities and science help us achieve and read about successful individuals with humanities backgrounds.
B1 / Intermediate60 minStandard LessonUnlimited Plan
WARM-UP AND VIDEO
This ESL lesson on humanities starts with a warm-up. Students share their school experiences and identify which subjects belong to the humanities. After that, they watch a video on the humanities and choose points that complete the statement ‘The humanities are subjects that help us…’. Moving on, students discuss questions about personal involvement in the humanities versus the sciences. Afterwards, they match lines to create dialogues with opinions on different fields. Following that, students review the dialogues and match verbs for discussing the humanities (e.g. solve, design, develop) with their definitions. Next, they examine the sentences from the previous task again and complete the gaps with the missing words (e.g. develop materials, make sense of our feelings, solve problems). Then, students use words and phrases to create more phrases with the verbs (e.g. develop new medicines, make sense of online trends, solve social issues).
VOCABULARY PRACTICE AND DISCUSSION
In this part of this ESL lesson on humanities, students choose the correct words to complete sentences with scenarios involving a lack of specialised expertise. They then choose three situations and discuss what might happen as a result. Following that, students choose common life goals and personal development projects (e.g. you’re raising a child). They name subjects that might help them with each situation, using the target verbs from the lesson when possible. Afterwards, students look at different skills (e.g. think creatively, improve quality of life, solve global problems). They pick two that they think humanities helps us achieve and two that science helps us achieve. Students give reasons. Finally, they read about four people who studied humanities and achieved success in their lives. Then, students do tasks where they evaluate the professional value and real-world impact of a humanities education.
HOMEWORK/REVISION
This ESL lesson on humanities also includes an additional task that you can use as homework or revision. In the task, students complete questions with the correct forms of the words and phrases from the lesson. They then choose three questions and answer them. 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’s so much happening in the world right now across politics, sports, the economy, and beyond, yet the lesson delivered feels disconnected from all of it.
It’s been quite a while since we’ve had a truly engaging and up-to-date lesson on the present perfect that reflects current, real-world contexts. At the moment, for instance, global conversations are heavily centered around running and endurance sports. Why not incorporate that into the lesson?
As it stands, the content feels somewhat outdated and lacks the relevance one would expect. I have to say, it’s a bit disappointing to open a lesson and not feel that connection to what’s actually happening in the world today.
I believe there’s a great opportunity here to make the material more dynamic, timely, and impactful.
Hi Thiago, thanks for taking the time to share your feedback!
First of all, sorry you feel that way. We try to cater for needs of different users, with different students and interests, and we might not always be able meet everyone’s expactations.
Having said that, you should check out the News for Classroom Use section where, every week, we upload task ideas based on current events. We also have a lesson about running. We don’t have one about endurance sport though, so thanks for the idea.
We do our best to come up with relevant lesson ideas, and we do appreciate ideas from users. So if you ever have more, please feel free to share them with us. Thanks.
That running class you mentioned dates back three years. In any case, the classes offer little beyond what has already been covered.