Tag: video lesson

10 ESL Netflix Shows to Watch With Your Students

Video lessons are an engaging and fun way to teach vocabulary, grammar, listening and culture to various age groups and levels.

However, sometimes you just want to use an interesting video as a filler or a discussion material without any preparation. Sometimes there is no time for printing the lessons plans. No time for searching for an appropriate video. Just hit the play button and catch a breath. Trust me, I understand.

Here is a list of 10 ESL Netflix shows to watch with your students. These are appropriate for the classroom, educational and suitable for discussion about the usual topics as food, travel, health, etc.

1. Secrets of Great British Castles

This TV show has six episodes that last from 40 to 60 minutes. It explores the history of the most famous British castles.

2. Ugly Delicious

You can find more TV shows on Netflix featuring David Chan, but I chose Ugly Delicious because it cover s lot of different cuisines and foods and therefore a more diverse vocabulary.

3. The World’s Most Extraordinary Homes

The episodes in the first season of this show are named after various terrain. Mountain. Forest. Coast. Underground. The second season focuses on countries including Portugal, Switzerland, Spain, Norway so the views are spectacular and the vocabulary interesting and useful.

ESL Netflix shows for students
What an extraordinary view!

4. Greatest Events of WWII in Colour

Even if you don’t teach history, you should understand the importance of documentaries about WWII. Especially now, when young people lack critical thinking, spread fake news and believe in alternate history.

5. Explained

This show cover a wide range of topics from music to animal intelligence. Be careful though, there are a couple of episodes in the first season that are probably not appropriate for school( Orgasm, Weed) so have a look at the episodes and make sure you choose a topic that is appropriate for your students.

6. The Mind Explained

The show has six episodes: Memory, Dreams, Anxiety, Mindfulness, Psychedelics. Each twenty-minute episode explains the mysteries of our brains in an engaging, fun way, with plenty of real-life examples, graphics, and experts. You can even download a worksheet for one of the episodes – Anxiety, here.

7. You vs. Wild

My students really like this show. It is interactive and the students make decisions in order to help Bear Grylls survive. They love making Bear eat bugs or raw eggs and jump from cliffs. Highly entertaining.

Will he eat it? Your students decide!

8. 3Below: Tales of Arcadia

This animated show follows friendly aliens and teenage heroes that fight against the forces of evil.

9. Next in Fashion

Great for teaching clothes&fashion vocabulary, this reality show competition has 10 episodes in which eighteen designers compete in rounds to create unforgettable designs.

10. Our Planet

This award winning show narrated by David Attenborough is amazing. I won’t say more, just watch it, with or without students.

Our planet is their planet as well.

Other ESL video resources:

TED Talks: What Makes Something Go Viral

TED Talks: How to Grow new Brain Cells

Stand Up Video Lesson Plan

  • Taboo Card Games
  • Role-plays
  • Speaking Activities
Buy our resources

TEDtalk Video ESL Lesson Plan: What Makes Something Go Viral

This TedTalk ESL video lesson is based on a talk by Dao Nguyen. In this video she is talking about how media spreads online and the technology and data that publishers can use to understand why.

Level: Pre-Intermediate, Intermediate

Time: 45min (video 10min)

Skills: speaking, listening, reading

Topic: Internet, social media, technology

Download: 
Ted Talk Lesson What Makes Something Go Viral SW
Ted Talk Lesson What Makes Something Go Viral TN

Dao Nguyen: WHAT MAKES SOMETHING GO VIRAL?

STUDENTS’ WORKSHEET

WARM-UP QUESTIONS

  1. What do you mostly use the Internet for?

  2. What are your favourite websites or apps you use?

  3. What do you think about social media?

  4. Which social media do you use and what for?

  5. How do you decide if you should share something that you see online?

  6. How do you protect your privacy on the Internet?

VOCABULARY

Read the sentences and try to work out the meaning of the underlined words/phrases.

  1. Last year, some BuzzFeed employees were scheming to prank their boss, Ze Frank, on his birthday. They decided to put a family of baby goats in his office. 

  2. Ze kept on getting delayed: he went to get a drink, he was called to a meeting, the meeting ran long, he went to the bathroom

  1. But it performed so much better than we had expected. What was it about the goats in the office that we didn’t anticipate?

  2. The following week, armed with the additional knowledge that food videos are very popular, we dressed two people in hazmat suits and wrapped rubber bands around a watermelon until it exploded.

  3.  It wasn’t the biggest live video that we had done to date. The biggest one that we had done involved a fountain of cheese.

  4. This is who I am. This is my upbringing, this is my culture, this is my fandom, this is my guilty pleasure, and this is how I laugh about myself.

  5. This is the group of jobs that makes me feel something — makes me curious or sad or restore my faith in humanity. 

  6. Turns out that this quiz went extremely viral among a group of 55-and-up women who were surprised and delighted that BuzzFeed determined that they were 28 and 5’9″.

 

  1. This quiz was successful not because it was accurate, but because it allowed these ladies to do a very important job — the humblebrag. 

  2. One brainstorming session involved the job of bonding. So, could we make a recipe that brought people together?

Match the words/phrases (1-14) to their explanations (a-n).

  1. to prank

  2. to delay

  3. to anticipate

  4. hazmat suit

  5. rubber band

  6. to involve

  7. upbringing

  8. to restore

  9. to turn out

  10. delighted

  11. determined

  12. humblebrag

  13. session

  14. to bond

  1. to pretend to be complaining but in reality to be proud of something

  2. to bring back

  3. the way a child is raised

  4. to expect or predict

  5. a meeting

  6. to form a close relationship

  7. to happen in a particular way

  8. to play a practical joke on someone

  9. to have a firm decision or a strong desire to do something

  10. a circle of elastic rubber

  11. to have or include as a part of something

  12. a suit that protects against hazardous materials

  13. to make someone late, not on time

  14. very pleased

TED TALK VIDEO

Watch the video and answer the questions.

  1. What animal did the BuzzFeed employees put in their boss’s office as a prank?

  2. Why was their boss (Ze Frank) delayed?

  3. Why was their Facebook Live experiment video so successful?

  4. What are some of the “jobs” that the content is doing for the reader or the viewer?

  5. Which “job” did the video about baking involve?

  6. According to the speaker, which questions are important to answer if we want to create better content?

Have a look at our communicative activities. Click on the picture below.

 

 

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