Unusual ways of using food

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Vocabulary - food idioms

food idioms practice

LESSON OVERVIEW

In this lesson about foodscape design, students practise listening, reflect on unusual ways of using food and learn several food idioms through a series of written and oral exercises. 

B2 / Upper Intermediate60 minStandard LessonUnlimited Plan

WARM-UP & VIDEO

The warm-up starts with six photos presenting different kinds of food. Students try to guess what they are using some expressions for speculating. Then, they look at a list of short tasks related to food and have to come up with as many answers to each of them as possible in only one minute (e.g. name three ways to prepare eggs). They finish this task brainstorming ways of using food other than eating.

The aim of the next task is to introduce the topic of the lesson – foodscape design. Students look at a photo of a foodscape and think of three pieces of information they’d like to learn from a video they’re about to watch. Next, they watch the video for the first time and check how many questions they managed to answer.

Afterwards, students look at a list of four foods, watch the first part of the video again and write what role these foods play in the artist’s design. They move on to listening for details and listen to the second part of the video trying to answer seven questions about the food artist. They engage in a discussion and reflect on the video.

FOOD IDIOMS PRACTICE

The second part of the lesson starts with a matching activity. Students look at nine food idioms (e.g. spill the beans) and match them with their meanings. Next, they analyse nine gapped sentences and complete them with a suitable idiom from the previous task. Written practice is followed by oral exercises. Students work in pairs.  Each of them has a set of sentences and reads them one by one. The other student needs to reply using at least one idiom from the lesson. You can finish the lesson here or help your students consolidate the idioms by discussing a few additional questions included in the worksheet.

WORKSHEETS

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  1. ann_pe

    Great lesson, thanks!
    For anybody who would like a follow-up of another unusual way of using food, here is Vienna’s Vegetable Orchestra: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwOXFOTagSE

    1. Kasia

      Thank you for your comment and the link!

  2. Kasiania

    A fantastic lesson and a compelling video. You simply want to know more:) thx

    1. Stan

      That’s true! It’s a really interesting topic – and the lesson is nice too 🙂

  3. Zhanat Soyuzova

    Amazing, my students found the topic entertaining. They also had an opportunity to share various opinions on the video, the discussion questions helped a lot. Finally, the pair work with the idioms generated truly fun dialogues. Thanks a lot for your work.

    1. Justa

      Great to hear the lesson was so engaging for your students! Thanks for the feedback!

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