On the road

Olia | Jun 07, 2026Jun 05, 2026

LESSON OVERVIEW

The main objectives of this lesson are to:

• talk about road features and traffic;
• review street and traffic vocabulary;
• debate road safety and infrastructure design.

In this lesson, students discuss vehicle routes (e.g. street, road, motorway), explore traffic signs and practise vocabulary for traffic features (e.g. crossroads, roundabout, stop sign). They debate road design choices and play a game where they test their memory by recalling details from a photo. Students read a text about a driver’s day in traffic, consolidate traffic-related words and phrases (e.g. rush hour, roadworks, collision) and work with text conversations. They also examine American English vocabulary, share their experiences and give a two-minute speech using the target vocabulary.

WARM-UP AND VOCABULARY

This lesson begins with a warm-up. Students look at words for driving spaces (e.g. street, road, traffic lane) and say what the difference between them is. Afterwards, they read sentences with street and traffic vocabulary (e.g. crossroads, roundabout, stop sign) and use it to label signs. Moving on, students imagine they are designing road infrastructure in a city. They look at questions and alternatives related to the planning (e.g. Which would you do in a school zone: install speed bumps or plan crossroads?). Students choose an option and explain. Following that, students play a game in which they look at a photo for 30 seconds and try to remember as many details as possible. They then get a set of questions and, without looking at the photo, answer the questions. 

MORE VOCABULARY AND DISCUSSION

In this part of the lesson, students read a text about a person’s bad day in traffic and infer the driver’s feelings. They then, without looking at the text, try to remember what street and traffic vocabulary (e.g. rush hour, roadworks, collision) were used to mean some phrases. Afterwards, students examine the text and check their answers. Moving on, they complete text conversations by replacing emojis with vocabulary from the previous exercise. Then, students look at road-related vocabulary in American English. They try to match it with the words and phrases from the previous tasks. Following that, students find and correct vocabulary mistakes in sentences. Next, they review the sentences again, choose two that are true for them and add details. After that, students discuss their perspectives on driving. Finally, they choose one traffic-related topic and talk about it for two minutes, using the target vocabulary from the lesson.

HOMEWORK/REVISION

This lesson also includes an additional task that you can use as homework or revision. In the task, students unscramble words in the sentences related to traffic. They then use the sentences to complete two dialogues. 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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