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Topic: Idioms
Level: Intermediate
Age: 18 years +
Length: 45 minutes
TESOL Methodology: Eclectic Approach, video, Idioms worksheet, guessing game worksheet, Idioms in the News sheet
Language Skills: Speaking, Listening, Reading, Writing
Lesson Objectives: Student should be able to explain what an idiom is and provide one example when prompted
Resources: Worksheets, laptop, YouTube
Warm-up (optional): Engage in the “Yesterday” activity. I would say “Yesterday I went to the beach” and then prompt the student to ask me some questions such as “Was it nice?”, “Who did you go with?”. Allow 5 mins.
Pre-task (optional):
Explain the definition of an Idiom. An idiom is a speech form or an expression that is peculiar to itself grammatically or cannot be understood from the individual meanings of its elements. They are a figure of speech and are not meant to be taken literally.
Teaching 1: Play “Everyday Idioms – made easy” clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVHlVbIgUH0 (stop at 4.35). This will teach five Idioms: “Raining cats and dogs”, “Go the extra mile”, “It’s a small world”, “Apple of my eye” and “Back to square one”. Afterwards, hand student worksheet (refer Fig. 1) and ask them to select the correct answer. Afterwards, replay the video and check the student’s answers together.
Task 1: Student watches the video and then completes worksheet. Watches the video once more afterwards and checks work along with the teacher.
Teaching 2: Hand student Guessing Game worksheet (refer Fig. 2). Instruct them to read the dialogue and then guess what the idiom means. They can write their answer on the worksheet and then read out aloud once read. Check their answer and correct if necessary. Ask the student to write down another example using this idiom and then read aloud.
Task 2: Student reads the dialogue, writes what they think the idiom means and then reads their answer aloud. The student then writes another example using this idiom and reads it aloud.
Teaching 3: Hand student a mock newspaper article (refer Fig. 3). Read the first article out aloud for the student and then ask them to read the second article aloud. Ask the student to find the idiom in each article below and highlight it or underline. They then read their answer aloud. Correct if necessary then ask the student to have a guess at what these idioms mean. Give the correct answer if necessary.
Task 3: Studentsfollows text as the teacher reads the first article and then reads the second article aloud. Locates the idiom in each article and reads their answer aloud. They then have a guess at what each idiom means.
Follow-up: Ask the student “what is an idiom and can you give me one example?” Student completes this exercise and answers these questions.
Homework: Ask the student to write down the idiom “under the weather”. They need to find out what this means by researching on the internet (or asking an English speaker if they need to) and report back to me in the next lesson.
