Travel

LESSON OVERVIEW

This free ESL lesson plan on travel has been designed for adults and young adults at an intermediate (B1/B2) to advanced (C1/C2) level and should last around 45 to 60 minutes for one student.

Whether it’s exploring new places, or relaxing in familiar ones, everyone loves travelling. In fact, many people learning English are doing so for that exact reason. In the past, travelling to exotic locations was only for the super-rich. Now, with the expansion of budget airlines and cheap packages, the world is a lot more accessible to a lot more people. In this ESL lesson plan on travel, students will have the opportunity to discuss and express their opinions on issues such as how much they like travelling, the best places they have visited and different forms of travel.

This lesson plan could also be used with your students to debate these issues for World Tourism Day, which takes place in September. For more lesson plans on international days and important holidays, see the calendar of world days to plan your classes for these special occasions.

For advice on how to use this English lesson plan and other lesson plans on this site, see the guide for ESL teachers.

PRE-CLASS ACTIVITIES

Reading activity
Before the English class, send the following article to the students and ask them to read it while making a list of any new vocabulary or phrases they find (explain any the students don’t understand in the class):

World of Wanderlust | The Top 25 Best Destinations in the World

The article provides descriptions of some of the most visited tourist destinations in the world. At the start of the class, hold a brief discussion about what the students thought about the article. Have the students visited any of these places? If so, what did they think about them? Which of the places on the list would they most like to visit and why? Can they think of any of the destinations that should not be on the list? Which other destinations should be on a list of the best destinations in the world?

Video activity
To save time in class for the conversation activities, the English teacher can ask the students to watch the video below and answer the listening questions in Section 3 of the lesson plan at home. There are intermediate listening questions and advanced listening questions so teachers can decide which would be more appropriate for their students. Check the answers in the class.

The video for this class is called “The Point of Travel” by The School of Life which views travel as a kind of therapy that can help us with our emotional state of mind.

IN-CLASS ACTIVITIES

The focus in the class is on conversation in order to help improve students’ fluency and confidence when speaking in English as well as boosting their vocabulary.

This lesson opens with a short discussion about the article the students read before the class. Next, the students can give their opinion on the quote at the beginning of the lesson plan – what they think the quote means and if they agree with it. This is followed by an initial discussion on the topic including the benefits of travel, the student’s favourite holiday/vacation and the best places to spend a holiday/vacation in their country.

After this, students will learn some vocabulary connected with travel such as backpacking, off the beaten path/track and bucket list. This vocabulary has been chosen to boost the students’ knowledge of less common vocabulary that could be useful for preparing for English exams like IELTS or TOEFL. The vocabulary is accompanied by a cloze activity and a speaking activity to test the students’ comprehension of these words. This may also be a good time to explain the difference between travel, trip and journey, as these words are often confused by students

If the students didn’t watch the video before the class, they can watch it after the vocabulary section and answer the listening questions. Before checking the answers, ask the students to give a brief summary of the video and what they thought about the content.

Finally, there is a more in-depth conversation about travel. In this speaking activity, students will talk about issues such as the different types of holiday/vacation people like to go on, how much they like to plan for a trip and the attraction of solo travel.

HOMEWORK

After the class, students will write about their opinion of travel. This could be a short paragraph or a longer piece of writing depending on what level the student is at. The writing activity is designed to allow students to practise and improve their grammar with the feedback from their teacher. For students who intend to take an international English exam such as IELTS or TOEFL, there is an alternative essay question to practise their essay-writing skills.