Lesson Overview:
In this C1/C2 ESL lesson plan, students explore what humans might eat in the future and examine how climate change, technology, changing lifestyles, and environmental pressures could transform our diets. They begin by discussing unusual foods before watching the video, which explores possible breakfast foods in 2039, including insects, lab-grown meat, seaweed, and food produced using hydroponics and urban farming.
Students develop advanced vocabulary and phrasal verbs related to food, sustainability, technology, and future consumption while completing video-based activities and exploring different possibilities for the future of food. They then practise expressing certainty and doubt before discussing predictions about how our eating habits could change.
The lesson challenges students to consider whether people will accept unfamiliar foods, how environmental concerns could influence what we eat, and whether technology can provide realistic alternatives to traditional food production. Through discussions, debates, hypothetical situations, and personalised activities, students are encouraged to express nuanced opinions and consider the social, environmental, and technological factors that could shape the food of the future. Activity Layout
- Warm Up: Unusual Foods
- Video: Key Words
- Video: True or False
- Expressing Certainty / Doubt
- Discussion
- Phrasal Verbs
- Future of Food: Debate
- Food: This or That
Homework
There is an engaging homework task to supplement this C1/C2 ESL lesson plan. Students read an article exploring how technology, environmental pressures, and changing consumer preferences could influence what we eat before completing comprehension questions about the future of food.
- Article: Food of the Future
- Writing Task