Street food around the world
60-90 min
Speaking
Intermediate
Overview
In this conversation lesson, students will explore the world of street food and its cultural significance. They will discuss popular street foods from various countries, learn key vocabulary—such as "bite-sized," "pan-fried," and "mouth-watering"—and reflect on how street food represents local traditions. The lesson centres around a video that showcases various street foods from around the world.
Students will engage in vocabulary activities, discussions, and debates on food culture and authenticity. They’ll also take part in a role-play debate on modifying traditional dishes and tackle some amusing food dilemmas. The lesson concludes with a reflective homework task where students write an opinion essay on whether traditional recipes should be preserved or adapted over time.
Our speaking lessons follow a consistent six-stage structure: warm-up, presentation (with video, images, or reading), controlled practice, free conversation, deeper discussion, and a final homework task to introduce in class.
Lessons come with a printable student worksheet and a teacher version containing notes and answers. For online teaching, we provide an editable Google Slides e-lesson that can be downloaded or exported to PowerPoint.
Warm-up
The purpose of this stage is to activate your students' existing knowledge and prepare them for the lesson's theme.
Activity 1: Lead a warm-up discussion by asking students questions on the topic of street food, gradually narrowing it to specific street foods from around the world.
Activity 2: Students will brainstorm different foods or dishes that match some adjectives commonly used to describe them.
Presentation
The presentation material for this lesson is a video from Insider Food titled “What Street Foods Look Like Around The World”.
Activity 3: Students match key words or phrases from the video to statements that describe them.
Activity 4: Students will watch the video and match each street food dish to its corresponding description.
Activity 5: Students discuss their preferences related to the street foods shown in the previous activity.
Practice
To reinforce their understanding of the new language or concepts introduced in the lesson, the students will work on a couple of controlled practice activities.
Activity 6: Students complete sentences from the video using the correct words from a list.
Activity 7: Students have to identify the word that does not belong in each set and explain their reasoning.
Let's talk
We move into free practice for this stage, where the students apply the language in more open-ended, communicative activities.
Activity 8: Students will answer multiple-choice questions. The questions have no clear right or wrong answers, encouraging discussion and opinion-sharing.
Activity 9: Students will imagine they are opening a food truck specialising in a type of food from their country. They will prepare a short pitch to persuade potential investors or customers to support their business.
A deeper look
This stage allows students to explore the lesson’s theme in more depth, tackling complex ideas and expressing their thoughts and opinions on related topics.
Activity 10: Students debate whether traditional dishes should be modified, using the controversy surrounding Jamie Oliver’s paella as a case study.
Activity 11: The students face hypothetical dilemmas related to street food. They must choose between two options and justify their choice.
Homework
Finally, we'll encourage students to extend their learning outside of the classroom to reinforce the language and concepts covered during the lesson.
Homework task: Students will write an opinion essay on whether culturally important dishes should be modified or preserved.
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