Since I teach English to adults living in the U.S., I am always looking for ways to connect lessons to my students’ daily lives.

My beginning learners are surrounded with English vocabulary on a daily basis, but oftentimes they don’t know how to go about seeking out the opportunities to learn and practice this vocabulary. By equipping our students with a few targeted phrases, we can give them the tools to speak more English as they go about their normal errands each week.

A few years ago, I wrote a series of lesson plans to help learners at lower levels gain practical vocabulary for real life situations. The entire packet of 8 lesson plans, Real Life English, is available to download for free on the teacher page of my website.

I thought I would highlight one of these lessons this month, to give you a little taste of what you can expect in the other lesson plans (including lessons for going to the library, post office, restaurants, and more).

I always find that for me, the greatest value in reading lesson plans written by other teachers comes in the ideas they spark for my own teaching context. Often this is a related but completely different idea that is a better match for my students and my own style of teaching.

I hope that this same spark happens for you as you read through the following lesson!

Lesson 2: Going to the Grocery Store

Materials Needed

• Picture dictionary with section on food/supermarket (Word by Word Picture Dictionary pp. 48-55) Alternately, you can bring several common grocery items from your pantry like bread, cereal, fruit, vegetables, and canned goods.

• Fliers from grocery stores in your area

• Index cards

Learning Objective

Learn common phrases to request help at the grocery store.

What You Already Know 

• Ask students where they go to shop for groceries (note any grocery stores in your community that are not mentioned, as English language learners often gravitate to stores where first language support is available, and may shy away from unfamiliar stores) 

• Have students work with a partner to make a list of things they might need to say or ask when they go to the grocery store 

• Have pairs read their lists, correct mistakes as needed, and write phrases and vocabulary on the board

Vocabulary

• Excuse me, I’m looking for the _____________.

• I’ll take  pound(s) of ________, please. (meat counter) 

• Additional food and grocery store vocabulary from picture dictionary

Practice 

• In pairs, have students take turns asking each other “Excuse me, I’m looking for the _______” with a  food item they might look for in the grocery store. Partner plays the role of a store employee and  answers, “It’s in aisle ___.” Students then switch roles. (If available, students can use picture dictionaries as a prompt for food vocabulary.) 

• Repeat activity above to practice ordering at the meat counter: “I’ll take pounds of __, please.”

• Using sticky notes, a piece of thick paper, or a notebook to cover the words on the grocery store page of a picture dictionary, have students work in pairs, quizzing each other on food vocabulary by pointing to a food item for their partner to identify. 

• Cut out pictures of lesser-known food items from a grocery store flier (or circle with permanent marker) and write the corresponding  name of the food on an index card. Have students work in pairs or small groups to match each picture to the correct word.

Cultural Notes 

• Make sure students understand the units of measure used in the U.S. and their corresponding  abbreviations: pounds- lbs., ounces- oz.  

• Show students how to check price labels on produce to see if the price is per pound (/lb) or individual item (ea). 

Assignment

• Plan a trip to a grocery store you don’t usually shop at. 

• Either 1) order meat at the meat counter or 2) ask a store employee for help finding something.

If you found this lesson useful, you can download the entire packet of 8 lesson plans for free on the teacher page of my website, and also check out the other free resources I’ve created for teachers.

Thank you for reading, and as always, I would love to hear about how teaching is going for you!

Bethany