- Level: A1-A2
- Handout on TPT
- Media: Video
- Language focus: food, verbs, cooking, imperative
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.
It’s Authentic
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 an authentic way 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!
Teaching Notes
I made a handout to go with the video and put it on Teacher Pay Teachers (0,99$). But if you want to just watch and discuss, you can use the discussion prompts included in this post.
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?
- Now it’s your turn…think of an easy recipe you could share with the class.