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"Dumb, but Tough" ESL Lesson Plan - Listening - Intermediates




Due to popular demand, I'm posting the listening lesson demo that use on The Language House TEFL certification course. I created this lesson way back in 2004 and I've used it each month to demonstrate how to teach a basic listening lesson.

The themes of the lesson deal with advice and doing stupid things abroad. I created the lesson to be specifically geared for people living in Prague, so it can be adapted considerably depending on your students.  Ideally, this suitable for an intermediate class, but uppers/advanced students will also have fun with it.


Materials: Worksheets, speakers, the song 'If you're going to be dumb' by Roger Alan Wade, sunglasses.

Introduction: 1-2 minutes 

Take a black white-board marker and give yourself the best black eye you can. Come into the class wearing sunglasses. Ask students about their week. When they ask you about your week, remove the glasses (shock!) and make up a story about how you got into a fight about something ridiculously stupid. Ask them what you should do next time and then elicit the topic of 'advice'.

Lead In: 5-7 minutes 
Have these questions pre boarded. Demo them out first and then put them into groups.

1. Who do you normally seek advice from? What makes them good advice? What advice have they given you in the past that has been helpful?
2. Name two pieces of good and bad advice that you have heard about living in Prague so far?
3. Have you ever been given good advice, but didn't listen? Bad advice and listened to it? What were the consequences?

Aux Vocab: 5-10 minutes 

From the song, board this lexis, elicit and CCQ. If there are other words that you think will be difficult for your class, board those.

*Note: In the lesson, I skip the final verse to make the song shorter. If you want a longer lesson, or one that is more challenging, you can add the extra verse and extra lexis.

To be tough
A badge
A dude
To Frisk
To swallow one's pride
The sharpest knife in a drawer
A fool
To get knocked down

Prediction: 1 minute
Have the students look at the lead in questions and aux vocabulary and guess what they think the song will be about.

Focus 1: 4 minutes with 2 exposures 
Before playing the song, ask students to listen to two things.
a. What is this person's main piece of advice?
b. What did the 'dudes' do to him?

Answer:  #1 His main piece of advice is that if you're going to be dumb, you have to be tough. #2 The dudes are the police and they frisked him and taught him how to swallow his pride.

Play part of the song once or twice until they have it.

Focus Task  2  10 minutes with 3 exposures 
Hand out the listening blanks sheet. Remember, we don't want to focus on the Aux Vocab! Blank basic words out from the song that they already know. You can see my example attached below.

For the Focus Task 2, play the song 2-3 times and then correct the answers as a full class.

Follow up: 10-15 minutes 
Create a sheet that list 10 dumb things that people can do. The sheet that I created is related to Prague, so make something unique for yourself. E.g. Running with the bulls in Pamplona Spain on crutches...etc. Make some of them harmless and some of them completely idiotic and reckless. Have students work in pairs/groups and number them from 1-10. Make sure they rank them so there's only one 1, one 2, one 3...etc. If you have extra time, the entire class can work together to decide the best rank.

End the class with a joke.





  Listening sheet below














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