Lesson Topics: friendship, loneliness
Skill Focus: Reading, Listening, Speaking, Vocabulary
Approximate Class Time: 1.75 hours
Lesson Plan Download: rental-friend-japan-advanced-092025.docx
- The lesson begins with warm-up questions about friendship.
- Next, students read a short (150-word) passage that introduces the loneliness pandemic and some of its potential solutions, including rental friend services. Next, students watch a short YouTube video (3:20) about friends that you can hire in Japan. The video touches on the importance of having someone to just listen and spend time with, instead of trying to always be productive.
- The video is followed by comprehension and follow-up questions.
- The lesson offers two debate topics; one about whether digital connectivity has made friendship easier, and another about the role of AI on loneliness.
- As a unique feature, I've added four friendship-related idioms to the lesson to increase its vocabulary load. Students complete simple matching and cloze exercises, and are encouraged to use the expressions in the following roleplay activities.
- Next, students do Part 1 of a roleplay between a rental friend and a potential royal client. One student must pitch herself as the idea friend-for-hire, while the other conducts the interview.
- As the lesson draws to a close, students review the lesson's vocabulary and match collocations used in the video.
- The lesson closes with some final discussion questions.
ADVANCED (C1/C2) Lesson on Rental Friends
- Have you ever paid for a service that wasn’t a “product,” e.g., tutoring, a guide, or a personal trainer?
- Think about your best friend(s). What do you do for them and what do they do for you?
- How would you define the perfect friend?
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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 Q Answer Key
1) …
2) Roughly one in six people report persistent feelings of loneliness, leading some researchers to describe it as a “loneliness pandemic.”
3) Hikikomori are people, often young men in Japan, who withdraw completely from society. Contributing factors include academic and social pressures, bullying, and crowded urban living.
4) He refuses requests that involve heavy labor (e.g., moving a fridge) or long-distance travel (e.g., going to Trinidad and Tobago).
5) He doesn’t act as a family member, actor, or role-player; instead, his uniqueness lies in simply “being there” without expectations.
6) It suggests that modern society struggles to provide natural, pressure-free relationships, and that many people value temporary, non-obligatory companionship.
7) …
8) …
Vocab review answer key: 1-b, 2-g, 3-e, 4-h, 5-j, 6-c, 7-a, 8-f, 9-i, 10-d
Idioms 1-c, 2-d, 3-a, b-v
Collocations: 1-e, 2-g, 3-d, 4-b, 5-f, 6-c, 7-h, 8-a
[1] https://www.who.int/teams/social-determinants-of-health/demographic-change-and-healthy-ageing/social-isolation-and-loneliness
[2] https://www.insighttherapysolutions.com/articles/hikikomori-triggers/