LESSON OVERVIEW
In this lesson students watch a video about strategies for saying ‘no’ in English and discover some useful phrases to say ‘no’ politely. They also put them into practice through a role-play.
WARM-UP & BUSINESS VOCABULARY
You could start this lesson by showing your students a scene from the famous TV show Friends. One of the characters says: I wish I could but I don’t want to, which you might use to introduce this lesson on saying ‘no’ in English. The next step is a mind map with six expressions for saying that you’re busy. Students have to read them and choose one of the words in italics to complete each expression. Then, they put the new phrases into practice and rewrite six given situations using the words given in brackets. They engage in a discussion on different aspects of saying ‘no’ to people and then move on to another vocabulary task. The aim of this task is to pre-teach students some words they’ll hear in a video in the second part of the lesson. Students read three statements and have to identify six words in them which match six given definitions (e.g. flattered, badger, downtime). They say whether they agree or disagree with them.
SAYING ‘NO’ IN ENGLISH & ROLE-PLAY
The second part of the lesson starts with the video about strategies for saying ‘no’. Students watch it for the first time and complete the names of the four strategies mentioned by the speaker. Then, they listen again and write down more details about each strategy. They comment on the ways to say ‘no’ from the video and share their own strategies. The listening part is followed by 14 polite phrases typically used for saying ‘no’ in English, which students have to match with the corresponding strategies from the video. Next, they’re given four situations and have to choose which strategy they would use and which of the phrases to say ‘no’ would be suitable in each context. They should also use the expressions to say that they’re busy. The lesson finishes with a role-play. Students act out the two situations described on a card, still practising the new language from the lesson.