OBJECTIVE & OVERVIEW

This ESL social media lesson plan and adverbs of intensity contains activities, PDF worksheets, and digital materials for B2 upper intermediate and advanced C1 students. By the end of the lesson, students will be able to understand and compare different types of social media, including ‘Threads’, learn some facts about these platforms, as well as learn and use adjectives of intensity to talk about social media platforms. 

PREVIEW & DISCUSSION

The first step in this lesson plan on social media is having students compare a few of the most well-known platforms — Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Students are presented with some discussion questions about social media, their experience with them, and opinions they may have on each of them. Students then do a vocabulary association activity in which they have to relate some of the terms they’ll hear in the video to the social media platforms, such as:

• rivals
• titans of tech
• regulatory concerns
• fake happiness
• controversy

Students end the preview part of this lesson by taking a short quiz about social media and checking what they already know about some of the platforms. 

VIDEO & LISTENING COMPREHENSION

Students watch a video from BBC about a new type of social media platform that launched in July 2023, called ‘Threads’. Students do some listening activities by answering some short questions about the video, followed by a true and false exercise.  

DISCUSSION & VOCABULARY

To follow up the video, students talk about some follow-up discussion questions and share their thoughts on the new social media platform. They then proceed to analyze a quote from Elon Musk in the video, and do activities on adverbs of intensity in the lesson, which include some of the following:

• undoubtedly
• fiercely
• eagerly
• tremendously
• thoroughly

Students will use some of these adverbs of intensity in the last part of the lesson, as it's described below.

SOCIAL MEDIA PRESS CONFERENCE

In this social media press conference activation, students choose from a list of different social media platforms, or come up with one of their own. This is followed by a discussion and research about some of the defining features of the social media platform students chose or came up with, what makes it unique, how it’s branded, and its potential rivals. They then imagine that they are the CEO of this platform and announce the launch of it during a press conference while using some of the adverbs of intensity that they learned.

Benefits of using this ESL social media lesson plan and adverbs of intensity:

Teaching your ESL students about new social media platforms can help them stay up-to-date with current trends and technological advancements. Especially when it comes to new social media platforms on the market, students may be curious about them, while comparing these platforms with other social media platforms they might use. Since the language focus of the lesson is on adverbs of intensity, this lesson plan also enables students to describe actions and emotions more vividly, making their language more expressive and nuanced, not limited to the context of social media. The press conference activation is designed to give students an effective way of using these adverbs of intensity in a engaging and practical scenario.