Live from London: Friends

Seven ideas on how to use this video with your class

The following lesson ideas can be used alongside the video Live from London: Friends. You can use these ideas on their own, or you could group some of the activities together and choose to do them in whichever order you prefer. Each lesson idea has a recommended learner level. The transcript is attached under ‘Related files’ at the bottom of this page.

If you’re teaching teens, you can use these videos alongside the series Impressions. This video can be used with the lesson plan ’Friends’

Some of the ideas can be used for flipped lessons. In this scenario, students can do tasks and preparatory work at home or in the school, independently from the teacher, for the following lesson. This allows more time for communicative tasks, teacher-led tasks or group-led tasks during class time.

1. Split viewing

Level: Pre-intermediate to upper intermediate

Summary: Students are divided into two groups. One group listens to the video with no visuals. The other group watches the video with no sound.

Objectives: to engage students; to promote speaking and imagination; to practice note-taking

Instructions: 

Group 1 

Group 2 now watch the video without any sound. They too can make notes about the places, things and people they can see. Encourage the students to think about names and general attitude of the interviewees, whether they are more or less friendly or more or less reserved in comparison to each other.

Finally watch the full video with sound and visuals.

2. Write an article

Level:

Summary: 

Objectives: to encourage creative writing practice; to use descriptive language

Flipped:

Luke 

Ask your students to imagine that on the day they were the reporter and they now need to write an article about their day out. The article could begin with the line ‘Last week I went out on to the streets of Brixton to interview the general public about their friends. friendly, awkward, shy, reserved, bubbly Students can write blogs or share their articles on google docs with each other.

3. Role-play

Level: Pre-intermediate to upper intermediate

Summary: Students are given roles as journalists or interviewees.

Objectives: to practise speaking; to provide fluency practice

Instructions: Divide the class into two: half the class will be journalists and the other half interviewees.

Journalists have to come up with six questions related to friendship.

Interviewees have to write notes on a friend. They have to consider their name, age, nationality, how they met, what shared interests they have, how they would describe their personality and appearance and what makes them a good friend.

Allow both groups to prepare for their interviews (approximately 10 minutes). 

4. Word formation

Level:

Summary: S

Objectives: to enhance vocabulary building (word formation)

Instructions: Before playing the video ask them what Rwakn says is the main quality of a good friend. loyal or loyalty Ask the students to work in small groups to make a list of other qualities. If they come up with a noun ask them to write the respective adjectives and vice versa. 
You can then follow with this lesson starting from instructions in paragraph 3 of the teacher’s notes http://www.onestopenglish.com/teenagers/impressions/friends/ 

5. Themed discussion

Level:

Summary: 

Flipped: S

Objectives: to promote 

Place your students into pairs or small groups for this activity. 

6. Group reordering

Level:

Summary:S

Objective: to listen for general understanding; to aid memory recall practice

Instructions: Print out the transcript and cut it up into small, manageable chunks to give to each student in the class. After this, hand out one piece of the transcript to each student and ask them to work as a group and arrange the transcript into the correct order. Ask the students to line up in the correct order once they think they have finished. 

Finally hand out the full transcripts to check their orders again. Whilst they read the transcript ask the students to underline any language that is unfamiliar and conduct a whole-class feedback discussion boarding new language.

7. Vocabulary lesson

Level: Intermediate to upper intermediate

Summary: students familiarise themselves with some of the low-frequency everyday English in the video.

Objective: to enhance vocabulary building, to provide speaking practice, to help inducing meaning from context

Instructions: As the videos are authentic, unscripted interviews some of the language used by the interviewees is very natural and colloquial. 

Play the video and then place your students in groups to see if they can come with a definition for the new language.

re still struggling put the following definitions on the board.

You can then ask your students to discuss the following questions in small groups. You can write them on the board or dictate them.