beginner | | ESL and EFL Conversation Lessons

How do you poach an egg?

How do you poach an egg? Yes, that is my discussion question for today. Easy right? In my humble experience, poaching an egg is one of the harder cooking skills I have ever had to master.

But aside from the culinary anecdotes, the mmmEnglish YouTube channel prepares cooking lessons with the goal of teaching English. Now I know it goes against the Whole Language Approach to use adapted materials, but I think this video has got all the authenticity features of first language material and is a great resource for beginner ESL material, of which I don’t have a whole lot.

So if you are looking for a good launchpad to teach food words or cooking verbs or just a good listening exercise that focuses on process, this is a short, slow, clear and useful video. Especially if you are trying, as I am, to make the perfect poached egg. Bon appétit!

Warm UP

Do a quick Mind Map of all the food words your students know. Perhaps you could also prompt a few cooking verbs.

The Video: How to Poach an Egg by mmmEnglish

https://youtu.be/bOnmVFww6gc

Discussion Questions

What are the ingredients?
What tools are needed?
What are the steps?
Complete these sentences:
- The water is perfect when it has small________ but it is not boiling.
- The yoke must be _______but not hard.
- Toast is just a ________that has be toasted in the ______
- ______butter on the toast.
Make a list of all the cooking verbs. Can you put them in another sentence?

Where did you go on vacation?

A simple question to start off the new eslcoversation.ca season. Of course not everyone goes on vacation, but usually the summertime presents opportunities for special visits, adventures, road trips and vacations. I love my vacations. My family and I look forward to them all year. And then, when they are over, we talk about them all year.

There is so much more that happens other than the vacation. No television (less of it anyway), we spend our days together, we eat special food, do activities we have never done before–It is a total break in the routine.

That’s why this week’s theme will be devoted to summer, vacations and routine-breakers.

Warm up

Do a quick Mind Map of the vocabulary associated with vacations.

The Discussion

My colleague Larry Pitts has an absolutely fabulous site chalked full of open-ended questions. I think this is the perfect place to start our vacation discussion.

The next posts will feature a video or perhaps an article, but for today, the good ol’ Q&A will do the trick.

What did or do you want to be when you grow up?

Level: beginner and intermediate

If you are like me, that question makes you cringe. Why? Because I have wanted to be so many things. Narrowing it down was a stressful process filled with doubt–even today.

Of course it’s normal to think about it. It’s also normal to look at your children and try to see where their strengths are. Are they mathematical or artistic? Are they builders or sports enthusiasts. The answer is probably complex.

Yet to be able to pay for food and rent and get around, most of us need to narrow something down. Ideally it is work that we like and provides us with the kind of lifestyle that we like. But statistically speaking, it’s unlikely.

This is the first of three posts on this topic. In this post, I am featuring a wordless animated short by Jasmin Lai entitled When I Grow Up. It is a great launching pad to uncover all the job related vocabulary and perhaps begin the discussion of the stresses associated with choosing a job.

Pre Discussion

How many jobs can you name? Do a Mind Map.
What did you want to be when you were growing up?
Did that happen? Why or why not?

The video: When I Grow UP by Jasmin Lai

Discussion Questions

Why do she compare her clothes to the other people taking the bus?
Try to name as many professions as you can.
How do you think the main character is feeling?
What do you have to think of when choosing a profession? (e.g. education, talent, work conditions, etc.)

In the next post, I will feature a trailer of Sean Aiken’s film One Week Job where instead of thinking about his passion, Aiken just goes out and tries a bunch of jobs.