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
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?