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Topic: Idioms in a Business Situation
Level: Intermediate
Age:
Length: 45 minutes
TESOL Methodology: Eclectic Approach, idioms flashcard match
Language Skills: Listening, Reading, Speaking, Writing
Lesson Objectives: To learn the meaning of 5 idioms used in a business situation and use them in a sentence in their correct context
Resources: Short story, flashcards, picture cards, written assignment, sentence cards
Teaching 1: Short story (ask a student to read it out- to make it more personal use the names of two students as the owners of the café)
RESOURCE SAMPLE – Bob and Jane own and run a little Café near the beach
Things are not going well – they are in a tight spot at the moment. They are losing customers to other new cafes that have opened up close by. Bob is responsible for the accounts and he tells Jane they have been in the red for the past few months. They have to come up with a plan – change up their menu to food that will sell like hotcakes to draw customers from the other cafes to theirs.
If this is a success it will pay off and they will be in the black again.
Task 1: Divide the students into groups. Hand over cards with the idiom to one group. Hand over cards with the meaning of the idiom to the other group. Ask them to relate the cards to the short story and try to match them up correctly.
Teaching 2: Learning the meaning
Tight spot
In the red
Sell like hot cakes
Pay off
In the black
Discuss each idiom with the students in relation to the story. Use the picture cards Example – explaining the idiom “sell like hot cakes”. Picture card could be of an ice cream vendor on the street and kids running towards it – to show that if you sell something everyone likes they will sell very quickly. Have a similar description for each of the other idioms
Task 2: Students to match up the flashcards correctly
Teaching 3: Worksheets / make a sentence cards
Worksheet – match the idiom to its correct meaning
Sentence cards – divide students into 5 groups and ask each group to construct a sentence with the idiom.
Task 3:
Worksheet – students to correctly match the idiom with the correct meaning
Students to create a sentence using the idiom in the correct context
