Last update: May 19, 2025
LESSON OVERVIEW
The main objectives of this updated ESL lesson on making predictions are to:
- revise and practise different ways of making predictions;
- talk about space travel;
- revise the synonyms of the word ‘predict’;
- watch part of a video about interstellar travel.
With this lesson, students practise making predictions in the context of space exploration. The lesson has been updated with a new video (which students watch to 03:42) and some speaking tasks which help students practise making predictions.
WARM-UP AND MAKING PREDICTIONS
This lesson on making predictions starts with a warm-up activity in which students do a short quiz. They need to guess answers to some questions about space. Then, students read some predictions and complete gaps with correct words to create different ways of making predictions (e.g. be bound to, be likely, be plausible, may well). Then, students look at some predictions and discuss how likely they think the predictions are. The predictions cover space-related topics like living on the Moon and Mars, mining asteroids and discovering life beyond Earth. Finally, students discuss questions about their views on space travel.
VIDEO AND SPACE TRAVEL
In this part of the lesson on making predictions, students watch part of the video (to 03:42) about interstellar travel and answer some comprehension questions. Then, they talk about space missions and other topics covered in the video, like generation starships. Next, students read some situations and complete gaps to create synonyms of the word predict (e.g. anticipate, foresee). They also do tasks related to the situations. The tasks include making predictions in different scenarios. For instance, students discuss the likelihood of the success of a mission to Proxima Centauri. Finally, students choose some areas (e.g. space travel technology, space debris, future astronauts) and make five predictions about them. They need to use the language from the lesson. Then, they talk about how likely other students’ predictions are.