History of Drinks Lesson Plan

Learning Objectives: To practise listening for Preparation Time: 5 minutes

detail; note-taking; speaking and sharing ideas and Completion Time: 60 minutes
opinions related to drinks. Age/Level: Adult/Intermediate–High
Skill: Listening Intermediate
Resources: A History of Drinks Quiz,
pens, paper, a whiteboard and pens

Warm-Up (15 minutes)

• Dictate the following questions:
- What have you drunk so far today?
- What did you drink yesterday?
- What are the healthiest drinks you know?
- And the least healthy?
- Are there any drinks that are popular in your country, but difficult to find anywhere else?
• Students discuss the questions in groups of three.

Introducing Listening for Detail (2 minutes)

Write ‘Listening for Detail’ on the board, and ask students to imagine that they are at a station, they
want to get to London, and they don’t know what platform to go to. They then hear a muffled
announcement which sounds like ‘Blah blah blah…London…blah blah…platform three… blah blah
blah’. Point out that, because you have a question in mind when you begin listening, even if you don’t
understand every word you can still extract the important information. This is called ‘listening for detail’.

Listening: Drinks Quiz (30 minutes)

• Tell the class that they are going to do some listening for detail, on the topic of drinks. First, they
are going to do some speaking in groups.

• Go through the quiz activity entitled A History of Drinks Quiz, in which learners do an ordering
activity, then check their answers by listening to a text that is read aloud in class. N.B. This quiz
activity has its own teacher’s notes.

Key:

Author: Tom Booth Page 1/2

© Pearson Education 2008 PHOTOCOPIABLE
 History of Drinks Lesson Plan

1 wine, approx. 6000 BC

1= beer, approx. 6000 BC
3 tea, approx. 2000 BC
4 Chinese rice wine, 8th Century BC
5 Japanese sake, 3rd Century AD
6 coffee, 9th Century AD
7 whisky, 1405
8 tequila, 16th Century
9 Coca-Cola, 1885
10 7up, 1920
11 smoothies, the 1930s.

Personal Response to the Listening (10 minutes)

• Dictate the following questions:
- What facts in the listening activity surprised you most?
- Which of the drinks from the listening activity do you drink?
- Which of the drinks from the listening activity are popular in your country?
- Are there any other popular drinks in your country that were not in the speaking activity?
• Regroup students into new threes to discuss the questions.

Closure (3 minutes)
• Read the following sentences. Students stand up if they think it’s true; sit down if they
think it’s false.
- Tea is the oldest drink in the world.
- Coffee originally came from Africa.
- When you are listening and trying to find a piece of information, quite often you don’t need to
understand every word you hear.
KEY: false; true; true.

Author: Tom Booth Page 2/2

© Pearson Education 2008 PHOTOCOPIABLE