Lesson Topics: robbery, crime
Skill Focus: Listening, Speaking, Vocabulary
Approximate Class Time: 1.75 hours
Lesson Plan Download: louvre-heist-crime-advanced-lesson-102025.docx
- Note: Some speaking activities in this lesson take a playful tone and have students imagine themselves in crime-related scenarios. If this is not appropriate for your class, then omit these activities or pick a different lesson.
- The lesson begins with warm-up questions about Paris, crime, and theft.
- Next, students preview sentences from the lesson's featured video and match 12 vocabulary items to their definitions.
- The lesson's featured video is a short 2:51 clip about the high-profile heist at the Louvre that occurred on October 19, 2025. The video explains how the robbery was executed, the items stolen, and the beginning of the police manhunt.
- The video is followed by comprehension and follow-up questions.
- For vocabulary practice, students create discussion questions with the 12 vocabulary items and then ask a partner.
- The lesson has two debate topics about stealing from the rich and the moral duty to act as a witness.
- As the main speaking activity, students have to devise a scheme to make three million dollars in a week in order to repay the mafia. Seven options are presented, some of them illegal (though not too dark), that the students must evaluate on a decision matrix that considers risk, possible payout, and potential consequences.
- Next students review four famous quotations about crime and theft.
- As a creative and consolidation activity, students then make up the second half of the Louvre robbery story. In their story, they should integrate some images and the lesson's key vocabulary.
- As the lesson draws to a close, students review the key vocabulary and collocations. Finally, the lesson ends with some final discussion questions.
ADVANCED (C1/C2) Lesson on Crime & Theft (Web Preview)
Warm-up Questions
- Have you ever visited Paris? If not, would you like to?
- Is crime a major issue in your country?
- If you could steal one famous object from anywhere in the world, what would it be and why?
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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.
Comprehension Question Answer Key
- …
- The crime occurred in broad daylight inside one of the most famous museums in the world, making it unusually bold and audacious.
- They were highly organized, used professional tools, acted quickly, and escaped efficiently, suggesting experience and planning.
- Because the stolen items are part of France’s national heritage—symbols of its history and identity—so their theft feels like an attack on the nation itself.
- Possibly not; the thieves seemed professional and may already have fled or destroyed evidence, though their visibility increases pressure on police.
- Cultural treasures carry historical and symbolic value; they may be stolen for private collections, ransom, or the thrill of achieving the “impossible.”
- People are fascinated by heist stories because they combine danger, cleverness, and rebellion; they reflect admiration for intelligence and risk-taking even in crime.
Vocabulary answer key: 1-brazen, 2-heritage, 3-frantic, 4-loot, 5-forensic, 6-made off with, 7-swiped, 8-masterminds, 9-audacious, 10-ushered, 11-heists, 12-sovereigns
Collocations: 1-b, 2-g, 3-a, 4-d, 5-f, 6-e, 7-c
Seems like a really interesting lesson, does anyone have a working link to the video?
Hello. I hunted down the video. You can access it here now: https://englishcurrent.com/files/videos/paris-heist-video-brazen.mp4 . Thanks for letting me know!