LESSON OVERVIEW

This speaking lesson focuses on talking about tourism and its problems. Students talk about travelling in general and tourism as an industry, watch a video and discuss solutions to the problems. 

This is a Speaking Class worksheet. It includes a variety of tasks that let your students practise their speaking skills. This lesson format does not focus on grammar or vocabulary. Learn more about it here.

WARM-UP & VIDEO

This speaking lesson includes an additional warm-up activity that is also a vocabulary revision. Students receive a list of words and try to create ten pairs of synonyms (e.g. hidden gems and lesser-known spots, tourist attraction and landmark, etc.). There is another warm-up in the lesson which focuses on speaking. Students look at the list of famous places (e.g. Venice, the island of Phuket, the Louvre, etc.) and discuss if they are trending and whether they would like to visit them. After that, students look at two terms, overtourism and responsible tourism, and discuss how they are connected. Students complete some sentences talking about tourism more. Then, they watch a video and compare its messages to their ideas. 

TALKING ABOUT TOURISM AND ITS PROBLEMS

Students have a few more activities and continue talking about tourism and its problems. After watching the video, they discuss questions and say whether they consider themselves responsible tourists. Students also talk about the advantages and disadvantages of tourism, about safety and responsibilities. After the discussion, students take a look at the list of common problems that tourism causes (e.g. local traditions are often altered or simplified to suit tourist preferences) and say whether they have experienced them where they live or while travelling. Talking about tourism, students also look at the solutions to these problems (e.g. educating tourists, introducing quotas, restricting Airbnb, etc. ) and decide whether they would be effective and whose responsibility they should be: governments, travel agents or tourists. Teachers can also ask students about the implementation of these solutions and encourage them to come up with more ideas.