Lesson Topic: etiquette, manners
Skill Focus: Speaking, Reading, Vocabulary
Approximate Class Time: 1.5 hours
Lesson Plan Download: etiquette-manners-intermediate-122025.docx
Lesson Overview:
- Update: This lesson was significantly revised and expanded in December 2025.
- The lesson begins with warm-up questions about manners and social rules in the student's culture.
- The reading passage covers ten scenarios related to paying a bill, public displays of affection, bad dates, tipping, unwanted gifts, sitting on the bus, being seen as ‘part of the team’, odors, white lies, and online privacy.
- Post-reading, students match B1/B2-level vocabulary to their definitions.
- Next, students use the vocabulary to rewrite discussion questions, which they ask each other.
- Students then review a list of 10 actions and rank them on a politeness scale, from extremely rude to totally acceptable.
- For a roleplay, the students first list inappropriate behavior on airplanes. They then roleplay trying to convince a neighbouring passenger to stop doing some of these behaviors.
- Continuing with speaking activities, students next review a list of seven tips for social interaction, and discuss which ones they agree or disagree with.
- After two famous quotations, students review vocabulary, collocations, and then discuss some final discussion questions.
INTERMEDIATE (B1/B2) Lesson on Etiquette & Manners
Warm-up Questions
- In your opinion, do people from your country have good manners?
- What customs or social rules does your country have that a foreigner might not know?
- What examples of bad manners do you often see?
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This lesson plan was created by Matthew Barton of EnglishCurrent.com (copyright). Site members may photocopy and edit the file for their classes. Permission is not given to rebrand the lesson, redistribute it on another platform, or sell it as part of commercial course curriculum. ChatGPT was used to generate answer keys and some famous quotations. For questions, contact the author.
Vocabulary: 1-g, 2-h, 3-j, 4-f, 5-a, 6-d, 7-c, 8-b, 9-I, 10-e
Collocations: 1-c, 2-f, 3-a, 4-e, 5-b, 6-d
[1] Some original content; some ideas taken from https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1d10p1w/what_are_some_unspoken_social_etiquette_rules/
Interesting topic, thanks.
well, i liked the lesson plan, it has all necessary steps. however, i only saw ‘warm’ and little of ‘presentation’. why did you go further with presentation?
Great lesson, thanks
I’m going to try this with my class of college-age students. Thanks for the online and print mode lesson.
These clips from Radio 4 are quite good and compliment this lesson. Thanks for this lesson – just what I needed.
Radio 4 Clips:
Are we getting ruder?: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/43Ghst5Qrfnys70XQp8gNyy/are-you-getting-ruder
Nettiquette: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03dy0k9?intc_type=singletheme&intc_location=avs&intc_campaign=radio4infour&intc_linkname=audio_computer_contentcard4