Word of the Year Speaking and Listening ESL Lesson Plan

This is a speaking and listening ESL lesson based on the Oxford Dictionary's word of the year competition. It uses authentic material in the form of a BBC article and video and I have included a PPT and a worksheet that you can use in your class. My students had a lot of fun coming up with meanings for the new words and were actually surprisingly accurate!

Materials.
PPT
Worksheet

Activity one.
First explain the concept of the word of the year competition to the class. Show the students the slide with the words from the word of the year shortlist on it and ask them to read the example sentences. The students should  guess what the words mean and write a definition for each word on their worksheets. (15 minutes)

Activity two.
Show the next slide and explain that the students should now ask each other what they think the definition of each word is. They should collect the other students answers on their worksheet. (10 minutes)

Activity three.
In their groups the students should then discuss and decide what they think the most likely definition for each word is. They should also decide what they think the word of the year will be. Ask each group to share their answers with the class. (5 minutes)

Activity four.
The next slide has a hyperlink on the word 'answers'. Click on this to open up a BBC article about the word of the year. The article has two videos, first show the video at the top of the page which explains the answers to the some of the words. Then open up the PPT again and show the students the explanations for the other words. (10 minutes)

Activity five.
The next activity is a listening activity using the second video on the BBC news article. Show the class the questions on the next slide of the PPT and check the students understanding of these questions. Play the video and ask the students to write down their answers on the back of their worksheet. The man in the video speaks very quickly, so unless your students are at a very high level you will have to break it down and play it a few times. (10 minutes)