ESL and EFL Discussion Activities | ESL Conversation Lessons

Are your clothes environmentally friendly?

Are your clothes environmentally friendly? Do you even know. I didn’t. Manufacturing clothes is a complex industry that involves chemicals, non-ethical labour (child labour), shipping, and very high carbon emissions (5% over the overall carbon emission every year).

Clothes define us. Make us feel pretty or handsome, help us feel confident. I’m the first to admit that it’s hard to feel good in a job interview when you are wearing and old suit. But

Still, I know that my love of clothes is not the best for the planet. So I made one of my environmental objectives to buy more second hand clothes. In this PBS YouTube show Hot Mess they present other ways to help reduce our environmental foot print with different ways of choosing and buying clothes.

Pre discussion

Do you like to shop for clothes?
Do you ever buy second hand clothes?
What do you do with the clothes you don’t wear anymore?

Some concepts to explore before the video:

clothing as a status symbol
impact on the planet
textiles, garments
releasing carbon dioxide, greenhouse gas emission
climate-friendly
fossil fuel
sustainable
ethical labour
environmentally friendly shipping

Teachers note: The presenter speaks fast. But you can reduce the speed to 0.75 and still get a natural flow. You can also add the close captions. If the rate and vocabulary is a bit frustrating for your students, encourage them to use their meta-knowledge to achieve comprehension (images, body language, guessing from context). The faster they get over what they don’t understand, the better they will feel when faced with native speakers in real life.

The Video: PBS Hot Mess How To Make Clothes Less Terrible for the Planet

Discussion Questions

Stop the video 2 or 3 times and do a Mind Map of all the key concepts.
Why are clothes so important to us?
What are some of the impacts of polyester, rayonne, leather, and cotton?
What are some of the environmentally friendly things we can do to reduce the impact of buying clothes?
After watching this video, what could you change in your buying habits that could improve the impact of the clothing industries’ impact on the environment?

Bitmoji Image — Let me know how it goes…

Can I help you?

In three minutes this video gave me goosebumps. It’s not the first time I encountered the idea that kindness is contagious, but it’s another thing to watch someone put it into practice. The gratefulness, the “someone sees me”, the “someone cares” leaps right out of the screen.

“Can I help you with anything?”, produced by Kindness.org, so simple yet so potent, so connected. Can you remember a time when someone just reached out and gave you a hand? Perhaps you didn’t even know you were struggling and they just cut into your bubble and helped.

I don’t have too many anecdotes, but those I do, I cherish. I also cherish times where I have stepped in and the person let me help them. In my mind, this is a unique privilege that is sometimes more about me than about them. Because it feels so lovely to feel the upside of my humanity. Better than a glass of good wine, a beach breeze or even a great tune, it ignites my soul.

Warm-up

Can you think of stories involving random acts of kindness? Either someone helping you, or you helping someone. How did it feel?

The video: Can I help you? Kindness.org

Discussion

What is Joe’s objective?
What are some of the problems he encounters?
What are some of the things he does?
Do you need money to help people?
What is meaningful?
What is the butterfly effect?
As a class, make a list of random acts of kindness
Who, in today’s world, promotes kindness?

Blessings to you…

Top 7 Travel Destinations 2019

If you could go anywhere on vacation, no budget, no constraints, where would you go? Erik Conover is a filmmaker and traveler and he has used social media to help him discover new and little know traveling gems.

He challenged his YouTube followers to make suggestions for the most incredible travel destinations. From this list, he charts his course and reports his adventures on his YouTube channel.

The result is a super interesting video of incredible destinations that have definitely made it to my bucket list.

Warm-Up

-What are your top 7 travel destinations and why?

The Video: Top 7 INCREDIBLE Travel Destinations of 2019 by Erik Conover

Questions

Depending on the level of your students, you can either watch the whole thing in one shot or pause it after each country and to a quick Tell Back.

For each destination say:

What activities can you do there?
What foods can you eat?
What discoveries did you make?

Have you been to any of the destinations in the video?

Which destination would you choose?

Which destination would you not choose?

If you could do a job a week, which would they be?

Level: beginner, intermediate and advance

Ever feel like you want to re-invent yourself? Like even though you are an English teacher, you could have also been a baker, or a computer programmer.

In the spirit of practicality, we usually chose one job, study for it and then go do it. But in fact, very few people work in the field they study in and even fewer people are truly happy doing what they do.

That’s why I love this video by Sean Aiken. He finds the question of finding a profession so limiting and stressful, that instead of sitting in the dark and brooding about it, he challenged himself to a different job a week. 52 weeks 52 jobs.

In this post, I am referencing the trailer to the film as a discussion launch pad.

Pre Discussion

Mind Map all the different jobs and fields you know
If you could choose 5 jobs instead of just one, what would they be?

The Video: On Week Job Trailer

Discussion

What is Aiken’s response to finding his passion?
What do you think it will led Aiken? What job do you see him doing?
Why is he doing this video?
Which jobs would you do if you could do a job a week?
What are the advantages and disadvantages of this strategy?

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.

Why do humans treat their pets like human beings?

Why do humans treat their pets like human beings? Yep, I’m guilty of that sometimes. And why wouldn’t I? Sometimes my dog is nicer to me that my children are. This phenomena is called anthropomorphism and there are many reasons we do this.

Somehow the relationship with a pet is a more intuitive and perceptually deeper. Since they don’t have words to tell us what they really think , we use empathy to ‘read’ them. And since animals are very good at picking up our vibes, it feels like they understand us better than our human counter parts.

I think it is normal to appreciate this, but do you think that showering them with treats and love and affection is good for them? It is also normal to want to give our pets a good life, but what should that really look like?

Pre discussion

What do pets bring to our lives?
How would you describe a healthy pet-owner relationship?
Some vocabulary:
- pampered
- appealling
- mischievous
- bond and bonding
- alleviate stress
- Behaviour

Video and Article: New York Times Why Humans Treat Their Dogs Like People

Discussion

Do a Mind Map of the main points of the video
Who is Tinker Bell?
Why does Annie Grossman think anthropomorphizing animals is problematic?
What did B.F. Skinner do to help us understand behaviour?
Is anthropomorphizing animals a northern hemisphere phenomena? How do you view animals in your culture?

Bitmoji Image

Are you protected from identity theft?

Are you protected from identity theft? It’s a scary thought really because my own personal answer is: I don’t know. I change my passwords regularly, I back up my computer, I don’t open any emails that ask me to give my personal information, and I never, repeat never, give my password to anyone. But is that enough?

Pre discussion

Have you or someone you know had problems with having your identity compromised?
What do you do to protect your identity?

The Video: Pattie Lovett-Reid: Tips For Preventing Identity Theft

Discussion

According to Lovett-Reid, when is your personal information most vulnerable?
What are some of her tips?
What are some of the things we should be aware of?
What are some of the first things you should do if you think your identity is compromised?

I don’t mean to scare anyone, but the more we talk about it, the better prepared we can be.

Bitmoji Image

Can you spot the lie?

Can you spot the lie? We would play this game for hours in long car rides. The object is to tell two things about yourself that are true and one thing that is false. The other participants have to say which they think is the lie.

Rules

Each player thinks of three anecdotes. Two should be true and one should be false.
Each player takes turns saying their anecdotes.
The other players have to say which anecdote is a lie.

That’s it. It’s a simple game that can be tons of fun. Let me know how it goes.

What do you worry…? Preposition Practice

Prepositions can be a bit nebulous to second language learners. Yet they do a lot of heavy lifting when it comes to meaning. So in many cases, it’s important to get it right. Here is a very short activity that requires the participants to complete the questions with the correct preposition. BUT after the exercise is complete, you can use the questions for a general discussion…double whammy.

Also, if as a teacher you need to get your head around explaining prepositions, this Khan academy presentation breaks it down a little. This is not material I would use with a student, but I thought it was interesting to freshen up my grammar knowledge and get a bit of the method behind the preposition madness. So to speak.

Meet the Preposition

Would you like to visit Mars?

Would you like to visit Mars? At one time this would have been a question to engage in hypothetical thinking, but now, it could be a real possibility. According to the Washington Post, NASA expects that trips to Mars may be possible in the next 20 to 25 years. In fact, they have launched an exciting competition calling companies, universities and anybody to build models of habitats for Mars.

And if you were to go, what would you bring? Some baggies to collect Mars sand? A good pair of shoes? Camera (of course)? It is an interesting thought to play with. Thus in this post I am referencing the Washington Post article Where to stay on Mars? Robots could create living quarters before humans arrive. The article is featured in the Kids Post, so the vocabulary is relatively simple. And the subject matter may spark some interesting discussion about basic needs, isolation, and exploration.

Pre discussion

Would you like to go to Mars? Why?
What do you think it will be like? Dry, hot, cold, lonely, weird, exciting?

The article: Washington Post Where to stay on Mars?

Questions

To get the gist of the article, do a series of Tell Backs for each section
What are some of the things that have to be planned in order to make this possible (food, habitat, etc…)?
What is the habitat competition all about?
What kind of entertainment would you bring if you were to stay a year?
What would you put in your suitcase?
How do you think visiting Mars will change life on Earth?

Bitmoji Image

Have a good trip!