Escaping Reality to Avoid Life (Advanced Lesson)

ESL/EFL Level: Advanced (C1/C2)
Lesson Topics: Diversions, Escapism
Skill Focus: Listening, Reading, Speaking, Vocabulary
Approximate Class Time: 1.5 hours
Lesson Plan Download: signs-escaping-reality-advanced-lesson-032024.docx
Lesson Overview:

  • After warm-up questions, students preview 13 terms used in a four minute Psych2Go YouTube video that describes six signs that people are avoiding reality. These signs describe ways that people dive into diversions (technology, jobs) or isolation to avoid life. After matching vocabulary to definitions, students watch the video on YouTube. The video is at a C1 English level.
  • After a listen, recall, retell activity, students complete comprehension questions, a vocabulary-matching exercise, and an activity where they make questions using the target vocabulary.
  • There are two debate topics--one is about the value of escapism and the other the value of modern technology. After, there are two roleplay activities. In the first, a parent tries to persuade his child to go out and 'live life.' In the second, a life coach assesses the escapist tendencies of a stranger.
  • As usual, the lesson has a few famous quotations and then a review of vocabulary and collocations before presenting some final discussion questions.

An image of a child playing video games while it is sunny outside

ADVANCED (C1/C2) Lesson Plan on Avoiding Reality

Warm-up-Questions

  1. How do you spend most of your time?
  2. What do you wish you spent more time doing?
  3. What do you do when you want to escape from the pressures of life?

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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 Answer key: 1-jeopardize, 2-procrastination, 3-self-reflection, 4-thrill-seaking, 5-slip away, 6-illusion, 7-whirlwind, 8-isolation, 9-autopilot, 10-on the go, 11-reckless, 12-subtle, 13-juggle

Comprehension Question Answer Key

  1. The purpose of the video is to describe ways in which people avoid reality by escaping into other activities.
  2. Physical disconnection is described as being on autopilot, moving through life as if you are not really present.
  3. The video mentions productivity in a criticism. It states that people often focus too much on productivity to avoid dealing with reality.

Collocations 1-g, 2-I, 3-d, 4-c, 5-a, 6-e, 7-f, 8-h, 9-b

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