Day 3: Hot take
With this little lexical chunk, you can teach your students to express their opinions with confidence and flair. The main language focus is “hot take”, but there are several related phrases, you can use as extensions for higher-level students or if you have time.
Goals: provide students with an opportunity to practise a cool language chunk (and related expressions) for sharing opinions confidently.
Timing: 10-60 minutes, depending on whether you want to discuss the takes themselves and whether to teach additional phrases (exercises 3 and 4 can be omitted to save time).
If you only have 10 minutes: Present “Hot take” only. Students write their 2 hot takes. Quick share.
Timing: 10-60 minutes, depending on whether you want to discuss the takes themselves and whether to teach additional phrases (exercises 3 and 4 can be omitted to save time).
If you only have 10 minutes: Present “Hot take” only. Students write their 2 hot takes. Quick share.
A bonus video: grading the content
The sound in this bonus video isn’t perfect. I accidentally used the wrong mic and only noticed after recording. It’s just 5 minutes long, hope it’s still helpful! I’ll double-check everything next time.
Lesson ideas
Give your students a few examples with the key language and invite them to find what all the examples have in common. If you're like me and chronically online, you can say something like: "I was scrolling through social media (as always) and found a very cool authentic phrase I wanted to teach you today!"
Once you've elicited "hot take," invite your students to share what they think it means. There are concept-checking questions suitable for different levels! Key points to cover:
- It's a commentary, typically a provocative or bold opinion
- Usually shared in response to something happening in the world to provoke a reaction from other people.
- You can elicit whether students think it's formal or informal (it’s Informal; common in social media, podcasts, casual debates, and journalism; sometimes used ironically as a joke (e.g., "Hot take: water is wet")
Feel free to discuss the following:
- Why do you think people share their hot takes online?
- Are most "hot takes" actually hot, or are they pretty mild?
- How do you feel about this type of content? Do you enjoy it, or does it annoy you?
Show more examples and invite students to identify other phrases for sharing unpopular or strongly held opinions:
- Unpopular opinion, but… (signals that the speaker is aware their stance may be controversial or unconventional, but could also be performative)
- I’ve said it once / before / and I’ll say it again… (used to emphasise that the speaker has expressed this opinion previously and still strongly stands by it)
- That’s the hill I’m willing to die on. (A hyperbolic, humorous way to say: “This is a belief I’m ready to fight for”)
Invite students to share their own hot takes.
Model a couple to set the tone:
Model a couple to set the tone:
- Hot take: winter mornings are elite.
- Unpopular opinion: grammar exercises are actually relaxing.
- Lost is the best TV show and that’s the hill I’m willing to die on.
- A hot take about winter / December / upcoming holidays
- A hot take about learning English
- A hot take about your city or country
- A hot take about any topic you feel strongly about
- A hot take about a topic you’ve covered with them
Let students read each other’s hot takes, choose their favourites, or ask follow-up questions. You can turn this into a gallery walk (they move from one hot take to another and discuss how they feel) or a “guess who wrote it” game.