LESSON OVERVIEW
This lesson plan is based on a short video presenting a man sharing experiences from his unusual journey and focuses on vocabulary in particular travel phrasal verbs. Students will also have a lot of opportunities to speak as they will share their travelling experiences as well as discuss how Anthony Bourdain perceived travelling.
TRAVEL PHRASAL VERBS
The worksheet starts with tasks built around travel phrasal verbs. First, students get six sentences and they have to finish them by choosing correct answer which will reflect the meaning of a given phrasal verb. Next, students complete questions with the correct forms of some of the phrasal verbs from the previous exercise. After that, they need to discuss these questions.
QUOTE & VOCABULARY
Then, students move to the next part of the lesson plan. They have a quote by Anthony Bourdain who claims that “travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart(…)”. They need to discuss it and share their opinion about it. Next, they move to a vocab task. They have to match words from two boxes to create pairs of synonyms. After that, students have to match halves to create phrases which come from the video and include words from the previous task.
VIDEO & DISCUSSION
The last part of the lesson plan starts with a short lead‐in to the video in the form of a discussion about experiences and challenges we can face on a walking adventure. Then, students watch the video and summarize it using their own words. The second listening comprehension task involves listening for details. Students need to write down what given figures and phrases refer to. Finally, to wrap up the lesson, students discuss the walking journey presented in the video and their own attitude towards such travelling.
I loved this lesson! It would be great to have this lesson plan adapted to A2/B1 students too. Thanks for the great work!
Could be hard with that video but give it a try! Thanks for your comment 🙂
Thank you .
thanks for this lovely lesson. It’s wonderful to have feel-good, uplifting stories to share with students. We have too many terrible topics and divisiveness on the news as it is. Keep the good vibes coming!
Lucia, thanks for you comment! You’re right! Now, more than ever, we need to stay positive and just spread good vibes!
I think it’s a great lesson! What are your thoughts on a good warm up for this one?
Thanks! You could, e.g. show students some Instagram photos presenting variuos forms of off-the-beaten-track holidays (e.g. #adventuretravel or #offthebeatenpath) and ask them what they think about such adventure travels.
I LOVED THIS LESSON!!! IT’S FANTASTIC!!
This lesson is fun and engaging. My only suggestions are to change the wording of these two sentences”
When you go on a city break, do you ever ask friends to …………………………………….?
Have you ever ………………………………………….. on your way to some distant places? Where? Why?
“City break” is not a term I’ve ever heard as a native speaker.
“On your way to some distant places” is a bit unnatural.
Thank you for your suggestions! After examining the sentences further, I agree that the 2nd question seems a bit unnatural, so we changed it in the worksheets. However, I haven’t reworded the other one. I don’t know where you’re based but ‘city break’ is a fairly well-known term, certainly in BrE.
I am considering using this lesson plan with some extra preparation with a B2 group. Do you think it could work?
Actually, it all depends on your students and their listening skills, but I think it could work with some prior preparation.
Great lesson!
Great lesson !!! Tks for sharing!!
Great lesson but do you have any ideas for a good task at the end in the form of a short presentation?
I can’t think of any task like that right now, but perhaps other teachers have some ideas that might help 🙂
I have delivered so many lessons from your platform but this one remains my favourite. I always get back to it and offer it to as many students as I can, it is such a wonderful and uplifting story! Thank you ESL Brains for creating lessons that move people’s hearts.
Hi Joanna! Thank you so much for taking the time to comment! We’re thrilled you and your students find this lesson so engaging and uplifitng! I feel the story in the video is definitely worth sharing 🙂
Thanks for this lesson! It had my students (a couple who love dogs and were leaving on holiday the day after) in tears – and me, too! I love this website. It’s my favourite so far!
Thanks for the comment and such kind words about our materials 🥰 Cheers!
Really good lesson! Thank you!
Thanks!
This was a fun activity! I liked the phrasal verbs as part of the activities and I felt like the activities were really well done, thank you!
I’m happy to hear that! Thanks for taking the time to comment 🙂