Cooking lesson: banana bread

How to vary language learning when a usual lesson is not enough? Every teacher has organized or at least has heard of speaking, reading, or writing clubs. Some teachers might have tried short lessons for intensive speaking/pronunciation/grammar sections and so on. How about cooking clubs in ELT? I have had several successful cooking lessons with my students. The idea emerged when we were discussing the topic ‘Food and cooking’ with my Intermediate student (coursebook «English File, Unit 1A ’Mood Food’) and I mentioned that I had been dreaming of making banana bread but had never got around to it. My student suggested that we cook it together. Hopefully, we had online lessons, both had laptops so it was not a problem to move to the kitchen and cook. 

The student played the role of a chef in a cooking programme, I was the invited guest. She told me what to do and did it herself as well. The lesson was 90 minutes long. Below you can see a detailed procedure. 

Lesson procedure:

Before the lesson 

I asked the student to choose a recipe and send me a shopping list a week before our cooking lesson. I also asked to send the list of all necessary cooking utensils like measuring spoons or a whisk. Of course, I have looked through the recipe myself and was sure I have every possible utensil in the kitchen ? So homework was mainly for my student to revise cooking vocabulary. 

We used this recipe so the student’s homework looked like this?

During the lesson

Step 1 — lead-in (about 2 minutes) 

We started with a quick test to double-check if we had everything for cooking and if the student remembered the necessary vocabulary. 

Step 2 — making dough 

Then we started cooking. My student was explaining and showing what to do, I was repeating the actions. If there were any pauses in instructions, I asked some questions about her cooking experience (just like in different cooking programmes). 

So you can ask:

1. Have you ever gone to culinary workshops?
2. Do you cook every day?
3. What’s your favourite recipe?
4. Do you ever have takeaway food? 
5. Do you often eat out?
6. Do you try to cut down on anything?
7. Is there any food or drink that you couldn’t live without? 
8. What food do you usually eat when you’re feeling a bit down?

Find more conversation questions here.

Step 3 — waiting for the bread to cook (about 50 minutes) 

While the bread was in the oven we had about 50 minutes for a speaking section. We studied more cooking verbs,

discussed how to cook other dishes, 

discussed the food pyramid, lunches around the world, etc. This part is very individual depending on your student’s interests, needs, and knowledge. You can continue studying the material in the coursebook or have something extra.

Step 4 — tea party

Then the bread was ready, we tried it, drank tea and had small talk exchanging opinions about the recipe and the results of the cooking (we worked with some extra food vocabulary for the description). It’s also important to collect feedback if the student liked the lesson, if we should organize something like this in future and so one.

After the lesson —  bread review

For homework, I asked the students to write a recipe review (I provided the example and asked to use the vocabulary from this recipe review). She also was asked to write about the next recipe she’d like to try explaining her choice.  

Some tips on a cooking lesson 

• If you work online from home, you definitely have the facilities to cook during the lesson. Ask your students to join the lesson from home as well so that you can give your students a hands-on cooking experience. This is a great way to get them active and engaged with something different. Simply provide a recipe and equipment, then put students into groups. 
• If you work offline, an online cooking lesson can be a bonus for those who don’t skip classes/always do homework, and so on. 
• Kids’ cooking recipes always work well for low-level students. This lets you choose something easy. 
• What dish/recipe to choose? You have to cater to different levels in your classroom. Vocabulary for food, cooking methods, kitchen utensils, and taste can be complicated, and many students will find it challenging if they don’t use them in daily life. For this reason, make sure that your students know vocabulary words and have the necessary utensils.  

If you’re looking for a way to engage students, get creative and try to conduct cooking lessons. You will reach some types of learners and the students will ask for more.

Speaking activities are, obviously, essential for English language speaking classes. A lot of students join classes particularly to develop their communicative competence, become more fluent, versatile, adaptable, and confident communicators in English. However, designing speaking activities might be time-consuming and nerve-wracking for any teacher. We have prepared a memo with superb ready-made speaking tasks that will make your student talking. Download it here.