Learning to use booking.com and Airbnb.com: lesson ideas

Nowadays, people travel a lot and one of the most favourite topics of students is travelling. However, students, especially, at low levels struggle to use websites in English, they don’t understand certain words, although the websites have Russian versions too. It’s a great idea to use these websites to teach some vocabulary in the context of travelling and booking accommodation, in particular. I also think these websites would be great to use for Task-Based lessons.

This is a possible framework for the lesson. 

Stage 1. Lead-in

Open Booking.com or Airbnb.com and discuss the pictures people see there. Ask what cities and places they see, if they’ve been there, if they want to visit them.

Stage 2. Model a task

Hand out a search box.

Give them some sentences about it. For example:

1. They go to Moscow. {True; False}
2. They arrive on the 29th of March. {True; False}
3. There are no children.  {True; False}

Students read and choose if the sentences are True or False. Then, they check in pairs. Teacher collects feedback and asks students what are the correct statements for the False sentences.

Stage 3. Focus on language

Elicit or pre-teach the necessary vocabulary, e.g. “destination”, “check-in date”, “check-out date”, “6-night stay”, “adults”. You can add more vocabulary, for example, “property type”, “free cancelation”, “prepayment”, “facilities”, “fun things to do”, “meals”, “twin/double bed”, etc. It all depends on your students’ level and what they already know. Don’t forget to include those in the model task.

Go over the meaning, pronunciation, form and appropriacy.

Stage 4. Task preparation

Teacher splits students into two groups: A/B. Each group is given two search tables with missing information and a text about people who are planning a trip. There’s information where they want to go to, when, how many days they’re planning to spend there, if there are kids with them, so on. They need to fill in one table and another one is left with missing information. 

Stage 5. Task performance

The teacher regroups students A/B. The teacher models a task again with a strong student. Then, students make two circles (A students are inside and Bs are outside looking at each other). They ask each other a question and write down the new answer and move to the next student. The teacher monitors and stretches the language, gives input.

Then, students repeat the task, but now they do it in Open Class. You can use the wheel with students names. Spin the wheel and ask the student whose name is on the wheel a question to check the answers. Then, this student spins the wheel and so on. The teacher makes notes on the correct and the wrong language used.

Stage 6. Language and Content focus

The teacher gives content feedback and then provides examples of the good language produced. The teacher writes mistakes on the board and asks students to correct them in pairs. Then the teacher elicits correct answers. 

Another option is to make the task more personalised: ask students to fill in one table with the information about themselves, where they really plan to go to and the second table is about their partner during task performance.  During Open Class performance, they share information about each other.

By the way, if you teach online, students can go straight to the website and try to book something, so put new knowledge right into practice. They can share what they’ve found. Or they can find accommodation for their partner (according to their conditions: dates, destination, etc.)

These types of lessons can also be used to practise future tenses or “would like to” if they talk about their dream travelling.

The same ideas can be applied to booking flights, car rentals, booking taxis, etc. Airbnb can be used in the same way.