Desserts ESL Lesson Plan

OBJECTIVE & OVERVIEW

This ESL lesson plan on desserts contains activities, PDF worksheets, and digital materials for B2 - C1 students. By the end of the lesson, students will be able to describe desserts using a variety of different adjectives and other vocabulary terms. They’ll also learn a variety of different idioms with dessert and food related words in them.

PREVIEW & DISCUSSION

To start this ESL lesson plan on desserts, students name some different desserts contained in some images, and then choose a few. They play a guessing game with a classmate or their teacher, describing these desserts. Then, students discuss some questions about desserts. The final activity in the first preview section consists of students expressing what they would do if a tasty dessert showed up at their house but that was addressed to the wrong person. This functions as a prediction-style exercise for the video.

VIDEO & LISTENING COMPREHENSION

Students watch a short scene from the TV series Friends, the one where Chandler gets a cheesecake delivery, but that was intended to be sent to his neighbor. He and Rachel struggle making a decision on what to do with the cake — keep it or give it back. In the listening activities, students answer a few questions, complete the missing information, and then do a prediction-based exercise midway through the activity.

DISCUSSION & ADJECTIVES

After watching the video, students discuss some questions about the scene in the video. They proceed to analyze some quotes from Joey and Rachel in the video. In the quotes, there are a variety of different dessert-related vocabulary words, mostly consisting of adjectives. Students have to match these vocabulary words to their correct definition. In the final activity on the page, students review some more adjectives that can be used to describe desserts, mainly about the texture. Some of these terms include:

fluffy / sticky / spongy / crispy / moist / flaky

At the end, students translate these words into their native language, and then try to give some examples of desserts or foods that can be described by these adjectives.

DESSERTS: PRESENTATION & ROLE PLAY

In this activation, students have two options. In the first option, they imagine a friend gets a new house, and they attend their housewarming party. Students have to imagine they bring their favorite dessert and use some prompts to describe it. In the second option, they get to partake in a dessert contest role play, in which one student invents a new dessert and describes it to a judge. The judge then must give their opinion of the dessert and a score from 1 - 10.

BONUS IDIOMS

This lesson plan on desserts contains a bonus activity featuring idioms. In the activity, students must match some idioms containing dessert-related words with their definitions. Then, they complete these idioms into a dialogue. Students perform the dialogue together.

Benefits of using this ESL lesson plan about desserts:

Creative Expression: The "Your Favorite Desserts" section allows students to express their creativity by describing their favorite dessert or inventing a new one. This encourages them to think outside the box and use language creatively.

Idioms: The bonus idioms activity adds a fun and challenging aspect to the lesson, exposing students to idiomatic expressions related to desserts. This helps them understand and use idioms in context.

Useful Adjectives: The lesson plan introduces a variety of dessert-related vocabulary, including adjectives to describe desserts' taste and texture. These are helpful adjectives to know in contexts in which students are talking about or explaining certain desserts.