Your B2 students can offer someone a cup of tea. Can they turn one down without sounding rude?
You’ve probably seen this in your own classes. A student can argue about climate change for 20 minutes, then answer a friendly offer with a flat “No” that makes the whole room wince.
Coursebooks don’t usually spend much time on that side of English, so I built a lesson that does. It uses something every student already has an opinion about, which is a cup of tea.
Here’s what’s inside:
A warm up on tea traditions that gets every student talking about their own culture
A Very British Problems post for spotting understatement, exaggeration and dry humour
4 roleplays, from celebrating good news to looking after a friend who’s under the weather
Pragmatic judgement tasks where pairs decide if a reply is polite, rude or somewhere in between
Discourse completion tasks so students try the language out for themselves
It works online and in person. If you teach Spanish, French or Portuguese, the tasks move into your language with very little tweaking.
Pop your email below and I’ll send both files right away.