Prison Escape ESL Lesson Plan

OBJECTIVE & OVERVIEW

This prison escape ESL lesson plan contains PDF worksheets, activities, and digital materials for B1 - B2 students. By the end of the lesson, students will be able to communicate about a variety of crime topics and use vocabulary related to manhunts and prison escapes. Additionally, students will be able to report a crime story in an informal or formal context.

PREVIEW & DISCUSSION

This ESL lesson plan on prison escapes begins by students discussing questions about manhunts. Next, there are images related to manhunts and escaping prison. Students must use a variety of vocabulary words and phrases to match with the images. Then, students get to make a public statement from the perspective of a police chief about an ongoing manhunt.

VIDEO & LISTENING COMPREHENSION

Students engage in one more brief, preview discussion question about manhunts they've heard about on the news recently. After that, students watch a news report about a prison escape and manhunt that took place in Pennsylvania (USA) in September 2023. After watching the video, students do an activity on true and false statements based on the new report. There are also a few short answer questions.

DISCUSSION & VOCABULARY

In the viewing follow-up section of the lesson, there are some discussion questions prepared for students that explore details of the manhunt and students' opinions of it. Then, students read and assess some quotes from the video while analyzing some phrases and important vocabulary related to crime, manhunts, and prison escapes. The final activity in this section has students define and discuss some other serious types of crimes.

REPORTING CRIME STORIES & BONUS INTERVIEW

In the final, communicative activities in this lesson, students can choose between two options. In the first option, students can choose or think of a type of serious crime and then report numerous details about the crime in an informal or formal context.

In the interview task, students choose a person involved in the manhunt they learned about in the video. They can choose between 4 people involved in the manhunt story. Then, they prepare interviews for this person and conduct their interviews.

Benefits of using this prison escape ESL lesson plan:

Engagement: Real-life news stories, especially those involving manhunts and prison escapes, can captivate students' attention and make the lesson more engaging.

Relevance: Such lessons allow students to connect their language learning to current events and real-world situations, making the content more relatable and meaningful.

Vocabulary: Students can learn and practice a wide range of vocabulary related to crime, law enforcement, justice, and news reporting.