Social Interaction Skills (listening/speaking - high elementary-pre-intermediate)
I am always looking for lessons that blend basic language skills with an exploration and understanding of soft skills. This lesson is a perfect fit. It covers essential vocabulary for greetings, compliments, and other kinds of basic social interactions while encouraging students to think critically about person-to-person communication - the most fundamental soft skill. It’s good fun too. For related lessons go to eslflow’s Socializing and Small Talk page.
Air Quality and Public Health (reading/writing - pre-intermediate and up)
This is a more specialized and challenging lesson. But it’s pretty rewarding as it dives into an aspect of our lives that has changed over the last few years. Most people didn’t check air quality five years ago, but now pollution levels affect everyday decisions: Should I go running today? Can my kids play outside? Should I close the windows? This lesson was designed for medical science students but it has universal relevance. I’ll try and do other versions (general and elementary) soon. For related lessons go to eslflow’s Environmental Issues page
Here are the contents for the lessons in PDF format.
Some excerpts from the lessons are below:
Social Interaction Skills Discussion
Social interaction skills have become more valuable than ever in the 2020s. This class discussion focuses on practical skills: what to say or do when you meet someone, which topics work best, and how to respond to misunderstandings.
Socializing : Grammar Role Play (gerunds and infinitives)
This activity explores social interaction (as well as gerunds and infinitives) skills through a scenario where two friends have completely different greeting styles: one expects hugs, the other prefers handshakes or fist bumps.
Air Quality and Public Health Vocabulary
This exercise illustrates essential air quality and health monitoring vocabulary.
Air Quality Graph Reading
Visualizations are a great way to add variety to a lesson. I’m experimenting with visualizations a lot right now. Lots more to come.
Finding the Way
This is another visualization exercise from an upcoming lesson on directions. One of my main benchmarks for tracking the progress of AI is how well it can create a map AND a route AND a dialogue for that route. It can’t quite do it but it’s getting better for sure.
