«Friends» comeback: lesson ideas (Pre-intermediate+)
Have you heard the news or maybe the rumors that “Friends” is coming back? Would you like to discuss it with your students? Here we suggest several ideas to use in your classes. The activities will help your students to practice their reading, listening and speaking skills, to explore ideas and exchange information, to develop discussion skills.
Task 1: Warm-up
Discuss the questions with your students.
- Do you watch TV series? If yes, what is your favourite one? If not, why don’t you watch it?
- Think of three advantages and three disadvantages of watching TV series.
Then show the picture and ask the following questions:
- Describe the people in the picture.
- Do you know the TV series in the screenshot?
- Have you ever watched at least one episode from “Friends”? Do you think it has always been a famous one?
- What do you think has happened in the picture?
- What are they doing now?
- What do you think will happen next?
Task 2
Ask your students to match the pictures with the names of the characters and their descriptions.
Option 1: If your students have watched «Friends», brainstorm what they know about the main characters.
Option 2: If students haven’t watched «Friends» and don’t know the names, play the video (till 03:45). Ask students to match names with the photos and descriptions.
- Ross Geller
- Phoebe Buffay
- Joey Tribbiani
- Rachel Green
- Chandler Bing
- Monica Geller
- Likes telling jokes with a sarcastic remark.
- The only introvert among the six friends and is quite shy and reserved.
- Imaginative, original and artistic, has a wide range of interests, likes tidiness.
- Energetic, spontaneous and flexible.
- An extroverted and judging person, obsess over details, likes organising and planning everything out.
- Fun-loving and energetic, knows how to take pleasure in everything around him/her
Keys:
1 — e — B
2 — b — C
3 — a -F
4 — c -D
5 — f — A
6 — d -E
Extra task to the video
Play the video (till 03:45) again and ask your students to discuss the questions in pairs.
- What holiday are friends celebrating?
- What dessert is Rachel making?
- Where do Joey and Ross want to go? Why?
- Who else comes to the Thanksgiving dinner?
- What ingredients does Rachel’s trifle have? How do Joey and Ross feel about it?
Keys:
— Thanksgiving.
— English trifle.
— They want to go to Joey’s roommate who is a dancer. They want to ‘celebrate’ with this dancer.
— Monica’s parents come to the dinner.
— Ladyfingers, jam, custard, raspberries, beef, peas, onions, bananas, whipped cream. They are not sure whether it is edible or not.
Task 3
Then you can check what else your students know about the friends and have some vocabulary work. Ask your students to watch two videos with Joey and Chandler. And then answer the questions:
- Who likes eating sweet food more, Joey or Chandler? What do they do ‘for the sake of’ dessert?
- How would you behave if you were Joey or Chandler?
Joey having dessert with his girlfriend (2:11- 4:08)
If necessary, ask your students to watch the videos again and paraphrase the sentences.
- I am not that much of a sweet tooth.
- I can’t seem to say goodbye.
- We will drop it off so we are not tempted.
- There seems to be some sort of red crap on my cheesecake.
- If I can’t have your clams, you can’t have my dessert. This is a two-way street.
- Stop staring at me!
Task 4
Ask your students to look at the photos of the actors. How have they changed? Which of them looks younger and more beautiful in their opinion? If necessary, provide the following list of the words for the description: blonde, dark, attractive, handsome, muscular, short, tall, skinny, thin, well-built, old, wavy, straight, grey hair, white hair.
Courteney Cox
Matt LeBlanc
Lisa Kudrow
Jennifer Aniston
David Schwimmer
Matthew Perry
Task 5
Tell your students that the very first photo posted on Instagram* by Jennifer Aniston is the photo of Friends. What do they think it may mean? How did Jennifer Aniston name the photo? Are Friends still in good relationships with each other?
Key:
“And now we are Instagram* friends too. Hi INSTAGRAM*”
Task 6
Show your students the heading of the news. Ask them to predict what it may be about. Accept any answers.
Task 7
Get your students to read the news about “Friends” comeback. Do they really believe that “Friends” will come back in the nearest future?
Task 8
Ask your students to read the news again and choose the best option that expresses the main idea of the given sentence.
1) Before you get your hopes up too high, the deal is still not completely finalised.
a) You shouldn’t look forward to it that much, since there is no final statement yet.
b) Don’t wait for it, it is not really true.
c) Do you really believe that it makes sense? The problem is not totally solved.
2) Jennifer Aniston has hinted at a possible reunion on her recent interview on the Ellen Degeneres show.
a) Jennifer Aniston told Ellen that they were going to film a new season in the nearest future.
b) Jennifer Aniston didn’t mention anything about Friends’ comeback on the Ellen’s show.
c) Jennifer Anniston has mentioned that “Friends” is likely to have a continuation while giving an interview on the Ellen’s show.
3) “Listen we would love for there to be something, but we don’t know what that something is“, Aniston told DeGeneres last month.
a) “Of course, we would definitely like to come back with the same cast, but we don’t have any idea what it can be”, Aniston told DeGeneres last month.
b) “You know we want to film a new season but with a differing scenario”, Aniston told DeGeneres last month.
c) “We would like to come back, but it seems quite unreal”, Aniston told DeGeneres last month.
4) She then proceeded to break Instagram* with her debut post of the six main series cast.
a) Instagram* broke the news about Friends’ comeback.
b) Then she posted a photo with the six main characters and it made everyone speak about it.
c) Her first photo on Instagram* was the one with the main characters of “Friends”.
Keys:
1 — a
2 — c
3 — a
4 — b
Task 9
On the 21st of February, 2020 Jennifer Aniston posted a new photo with Friends and named it “It’s happening”. Ask your students to come up with ideas to answer the question “What’s happening”? They can write their comments on Instagram*.
Task 10
Now it is time for a hot discussion. Sample questions to be discussed.
- What was special about “Friends”? Why did it use to be so popular in the past?
- Would you like to see the continuation of “Friends” on TV? Why yes, why not?
- If you were the main director, how would you film new series? Would you change the names of the characters? What would you add in the series?
- What advantages might the continuation of the series have that the latter lacked?
Hopefully, these ideas will turn out to be motivating both for you and your students to discuss the news, improve language skills and just have a fun time.
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