OVERVIEW & OBJECTIVES

This ESL lesson plan on vacation & work phrasal verbs offers engaging activities, PDF worksheets, and digital materials designed for intermediate B1 students. In this lesson, students will:

• Discuss feelings before and after vacations and reflect on recent or upcoming trips.
• Build vocabulary with phrasal verbs and expressions about post-vacation experiences and workplace struggles.
• Watch a short, personable video with tips for beating the post-vacation blues.
• Practice phrasal verbs like "bounce back", "catch up with", and "burn out" through examples and personal stories.
• Role-play offering support to someone facing work-related challenges using the target vocabulary.

PREVIEW & DISCUSSION

Students begin this ESL lesson on vacation and work phrasal verbs by imagining the emotional state of someone returning from an amazing European vacation. They read Peter’s reflections and then answer questions about how people tend to feel before and after vacations, including their own recent or future travel plans. Next, students review a list of post-vacation experiences and sort them into positive and negative categories. Then, they work together to generate helpful tips for overcoming post-vacation blues using common action verbs such as call, plan, start, and get. In the final discussion, students share their ideas about why vacations can sometimes feel exhausting rather than refreshing.

VIEWING ACTIVITY

Students watch a video where Peter, a cheerful ex-banker and online creator, talks about the emotional dip that often comes after a great vacation. He explains why this happens and shares simple tips to help people feel better, like tidying up, connecting with friends, and planning small enjoyable events. In the first part of the activity, students answer true or false questions based on the opening of the video and correct any incorrect statements. Then, they complete missing words from Peter’s six suggested tips. Finally, they match each tip to the reason Peter believes it’s helpful, encouraging students to link language with purpose and meaning.

DISCUSSION & PHRASAL VERBS

To follow up the video, students reflect on how useful or relatable Peter’s advice is. They discuss the types of vacations that leave them refreshed or tired and talk about which kinds of trips are easier or harder to bounce back from. Then, students read a series of short workplace-related stories that include phrasal verbs in bold, such as mess up, slack off, and switch off. They try to define the meanings of each phrasal verb using context clues. In the final part, students identify which characters are dealing with specific problems like exhaustion, mistakes, or work overload, deepening their comprehension of both the vocabulary and real-life challenges.

BOUNCING BACK FROM WORK STRUGGLES: TALK IT OUT

Students begin by choosing a common workplace struggle from a list that includes Work Overload, Exhaustion, and Post-Vacation Blues. They reflect on personal experiences or create fictional examples to explore how this challenge affects someone. Then, in pairs, they role-play a conversation between someone going through a hard time at work and a supportive friend or colleague. One student describes their issue and is encouraged to use target phrasal verbs like deal with, pile up, and zone out. The other student listens and gives advice, then the roles are reversed. This interactive exercise gives students a chance to use new language in meaningful, personal ways.

BENEFITS OF USING THIS ESL LESSON ON VACATION & WORK PHRASAL VERBS

This lesson helps students make real-world connections with language by focusing on emotional experiences and everyday work challenges. It supports vocabulary development with clear, context-rich examples of phrasal verbs that are both useful and relevant to students’ lives. The video provides an engaging, relatable entry point into the topic and models natural spoken English. The preview and discussion activities warm students up emotionally and linguistically before the main input, while the activation gives them structured freedom to personalize and practice what they’ve learned. This ESL lesson on vacation and work phrasal verbs is ideal for helping students improve fluency, confidence, and empathy in their conversations.