Lesson Topics: travel, gender roles
Skill Focus: Listening, Reading, Speaking, Vocabulary, Grammar (articles)
Approximate Class Time: 1.75 hours
Lesson Plan Download: passport-bros-upper-intermediate-052026.docx
Lesson Overview:
- Note: The lesson's video contains some informal language. Please preview it.
- Students first warm up with questions about dating and cross-cultural relationships.
- The lesson has a 167-word reading passage and a short video as inputs. The passage introduces passport bros, Western men who travel to meet women, and then explains some of the reasons these bros go abroad. It also contains some criticisms.
- After the passage, students watch a short 1:45-minute video entitled, "Why Are American Men Moving to Colombia?", which features a passport bro influencer talking about Colombia.
- After each video, students answer comprehension questions.
- Students then match 12 vocabulary items from phrases in the video to definitions. This is followed by a sentence transformation exercise which requires students ask questions to each other using some of the new words.
- After a debate on the ethics of being a passport bro, students review five actions and decide whether to classify them as entitled or healthy.
- The lesson has one roleplay, between a young woman in a developing country and her father on the topic of dating a passport bro.
- As a grammar point, students review the use of the definite article before country names.
- Afterward, students review vocabulary and the lesson's collocations.
- Finally, the lesson ends with a few final discussion questions.
UPPER-INTERMEDIATE (B2/C1) Lesson on Passport Bros
Warm-up Questions
- What are the pros and cons of dating men or women from your culture?
- Do you know anyone who met their partner abroad? In general, do cross-cultural marriages work?
- You are going to watch a video about men who travel overseas to meet women. What do you think are the top five countries these men travel to? Make a list. (Answers in passage.)
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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. Claude was used to generate answer keys and some famous quotations. For questions, contact the author.
Comprehension Question Answer Key:
- ...
- Several reasons: the rise of remote work allows men to live abroad on a Western salary; dissatisfaction with Western dating culture; seeking women with traditional values; some see it as a way to find connection and belonging.
- Any one of: passport bros take advantage of economic inequality; they target women in poorer countries who may feel financial pressure; some are dismissed as "Losers Back Home."
- "Loser Back Home" — it implies that passport bros are men who were unsuccessful in dating or life in their home country and are exploiting their relative wealth abroad.
- Having a remote job / earning money remotely.
- "Incel" means involuntary celibate — a man who cannot find a sexual or romantic partner. Abeyta does not think most young passport bros are incels; he believes they are simply young men who want to date but are struggling, not angry or resentful about it.
- The money stretches further / buys more than it would at home — a dollar or pound has much greater purchasing power in countries like Colombia.
- She says "take adventure" instead of "take advantage."
- "Gringo" is an informal term used in Latin America for a foreigner, typically American or Western. The phrase suggests that local women expect foreign men to pay, implying an unequal financial relationship.
Vocabulary answer key: 1-j, 2-d, 3-g, 4-f, 5-i, 6-c, 7-k, 8-b, 9-a, 10-l, 11-e, 12-h
a-weaponize, b-entitled, c-gratitude, d-get laid, e-accusations, f-toxic, g-on the agenda, h-formula, i-have sth down, j-initiate, k-incels
Collocations: 1-f, 2-a, 3-d, 4-c, 5-h, 6-e, 7-b, 8-g
[1] Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passport_bros
[2] According to this video: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/5ZrggpM2aak