| LESSON OVERVIEW
This ESL material is based on a short video entitled “This Couple Lives In A Bus To Escape Chicago’s High Cost Of Living”. As the title of the video suggests, it is connected with less conventional alternatives to buying a house which are cheaper, but still amazing. The video comes from a great YouTube channel called Stories which is full of short videos on unusual places, people and cultures. Get inspired and find there something to use as part of your ESL material!
WARM-UP
Kick off with a warm-up, that focuses on comparing different places of living. It’s a nice way of revising some vocabulary that might be useful in the next exercises from this lesson plan.
VOCABULARY – IDIOMS
Our worksheet consists of a few tasks. Firstly, students will learn some idioms and fixed phrases which include words home and house. They have to choose the correct word to make idioms and then match idioms to their meanings. Next, they also have the chance to speak in pairs about issues containing the idioms from the previous exercise.
DISCUSSION AND VIDEO
Moreover, before watching the video, there is a short discussion on general statements concerning housing such as Airbnb, living with parents or mortgages. When it comes to the video, there are two tasks based on it. First, students need to answer comprehension questions and then fill in the gaps in the sentences from the video. At the end, they can talk about their personal opinions on this alternative to buying their own house or flat.
WORKSHEETS
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Great! Thank you! 🙂
Thanks!
Great video! But I have only one question. How do you heat your bus in the winter? Or is it only for summer time?
Well, it’s a not perfect solution for sure 🙂 I bet they have some heaters installed or something like that
The lesson was very interesting, thanks. Good topic to discuss. But these two could spend their 9K dollars on 3-4 years leaving in Thai, instead, heh. There are a great bunch of americans and englishmans.
some of the idioms I’ve never heard of (I’m a native speaker) and the extra warm up seems a bit vague but I’m considering using this lesson for my business group!
Hi Asha, would you tell us what’s vague about the extra task? We’re always happy to get some feedback.
In terms of those idioms, it’s a mix of British and American ones and we tried picking the most popular ones, I wonder which ones you are not familiar with.
Excellent!
It looks like they’ve got access to electricity, so they’re fine. Living on a canal boat in London was a different story
Hi! I’ve never heard the idiom “home from home” before, perhaps it should be “home away from home”?
Hi! Actually, both of them are correct. See this.
Hi! thanks, always nice to learn something new!
I have used this lesson and it works well 🙂 thanks!
However, I must point something out:
“pay a rent” does not exist. It should be simply, “pay rent”. It’s a collocation and honestly, I have never seen it used like this…
Hi! I’m happy that you find this lesson useful 🙂 And, of course, you’re right! I’m sorry for the slip-up! We’ve just updated the worksheets.
Why do we need the ‘house’ idioms? Would be better to have some descriptions/adjs to match what it could be like for example living in a big house or mansion, living in an apartment, living in a tiny home. Then to discuss what factors go into choosing where we end up living.
Hi! Developing a lesson plan is a creative process which includes many decisions. With this lesson, introducing house idioms was our choice which we thought was interesting and engaging for students. It’s a nice suggestion to supplement the lesson with the questions you’ve mnetioned though. If you’re interested in the topic, you can also browse our other lessons here 🙂