A Halloween conversation lesson for adults

It’s that time of the year again. If you are into Halloween there are a plethora of materials out there. For starters, you may want to check out the vocabulary lessons I posted last year. In addition to that, check out Eduardo de Freitas’ materials. He has Halloween lessons for all levels with great handouts. Finally, if you are looking for a reading Halloween lesson for advanced students give Beatriz Solino’s blog a go.

As for my lesson today, I feel like adults are often ignored during Halloween, as teachers are worried about activities for children and pre-teens. With this in mind, this is a conversation lesson to be used with adults or young adults – better to be safe and do it with students who are over 18, as the topic of the text may be sensitive.

Gender diversity at work: a conversation lesson

I have only ever worked as an English teacher, and maybe because of that, my initial thoughts about gender diversity at work are biased. Along the years, most of my co-workers and bosses have been women (7 of the coordinators/managers I have worked with directly were women and only two were men).

However, when talking to students in other professions, I realised that their reality is the complete opposite of that. So, when I found an article that touched on this issue, I thought it would generate some interesting discussion with my students.

This lesson is aimed at adult students who are B1+. I could be wrong, but I’m not sure adolescents, regardless of their level, would have much to say about it.

Brazil’s Trump? – a conversation lesson

Last week I wrote in a comment on BrELT that religion is a topic I”m afraid to talk about in English lessons. Politics is, on the other hand, fair game.

Two weeks ago Brazilians voted to elect their new mayors and there was one candidate in particular that proved to be very controversial, at least according to my Facebook timeline. After João Doria’s win in São Paulo, I came across a couple of articles in English comparing him to Donald Trump and thought that could lead to an interesting discussion with my students.

This lesson is aimed at adult students who are B2, although you can use it with B1 students as well with some pre-teaching of vocabulary for the text.

Commuting: a business conversation lesson

I have been going to São Paulo once a week for the past year. Because of that, the topic of commuting has been on my mind quite frequently and I thought it would be a good topic for a conversation lesson.

This is a lesson aimed at adult students, particularly those who deal with long commutes. However, I have also used it successfully with students that have short commutes. The former get to think whether their life-choices are worth it while the latter get asked what would take for them to give their short commutes.