Lesson Overview

In this B2 ESL lesson, students explore the controversial question: Do looks matter? They examine how appearance can influence the way people are judged, treated, and given opportunities in everyday situations.

Learners practise key vocabulary related to appearance, judgement, and social influence, including terms such as first impressions, self-esteem, bias, and assumptions. They also develop the ability to express and justify opinions using natural language for agreeing and disagreeing.

Through a combination of reading, listening, discussion tasks, and a structured debate, students build confidence in forming and defending arguments about a modern social issue. They are encouraged to think critically about fairness, stereotypes, and the role of appearance in society.

By the end of the lesson, students will be able to express balanced opinions about the importance of looks, give reasons for their views, and participate in a structured debate using clear and natural B2-level language.

1. Warm Up: Body Parts
2. Describing Appearance
3. Describing Appearance: Part 2
4. Topic: Key Words
5. Article: Looks Are Not Important
6. Audio: Looks Do Matter
7. Debate
8. Would You Rather? 

Homework

There is an excellent homework task to supplement this awesome B2 ESL lesson plan. Students are challenged to analyse an interesting article which is linked to the topic of the lesson, before being asked to write answers to challenging questions. Activity layout:

1. Article: When Looks Do Matter. 
2. Writing task