LESSON OVERVIEW

This decision-making lesson plan is based on a video by Patrick J. McGinnis who coined the term FOMO. This time, however, it is about a different acronym, FOBO – fear of a better option. The worksheet consists of a lot of exercises that will make your students learn new vocabulary, listen to decision-making strategies presented by the speaker and talk about their own experiences with taking decisions.

WARM-UP

The worksheet starts with a task in which students have to match 8 questions to correct answers. The questions contain some words and phrases connected with making decisions. For example, a snap decision, make-or-break, flip a coin, etc. These questions and answers are structured in such a way that after matching them correctly, students are able to understand the meaning of the vocabulary items. Next, students have to work in pairs and answer the same questions, however, in a way that is true for them. Encourage your students to ask their partners some follow-up questions as well.

VIDEO & DISCUSSION

Next three tasks are all listening comprehension activities based on the video about making faster decisions. First, students watch just a minute of the video and have to find out and explain what FOBO means. Then, they continue watching the video and have to complete a table. They have 3 decision types that the speaker presents and they need to write down meanings and examples of such decisions. In the third task, students watch the whole video again and note down what provided pictures refer to. Finally, students need to list a few personal and professional no-stakes, low-stakes and high-stakes decisions they’ve made in their lives and compare them in pairs.

VOCABULARY EXTENSION

In the next exercise, there is a box with a few words in it. Students have to complete given sentences with these words. There are such expressions as take sth into account, have second thoughts or be in two minds. To practise these phrases, cut out and give students a follow-up exercise [available on Page 4 of the Teacher’s Version]. Don’t show it to your students before they finish completing sentences. You can make them work in pairs and describe the last time they had some situations described in the task.

The last task of this decision-making lesson plan is a short discussion. In the video, Patrick McGinnis presented some strategies for making decisions. Students have to look at the list of various strategies and discuss in groups whether they use them and for what type of decisions.

With this extra worksheet, we want to focus on make and do as these two verbs are often confused by students. We focus here first on make and do collocations and the more basic stuff that your B2 students should already know. There is some free practice and speaking tasks to reinforce that. Next we move to fixed phrases with the verbs make and do. Students will have to decide which verb to use to create these phrase, then identify their meaning from the context. At the end, there is a short speaking task which uses new phrases.