ESL Jigsaws

Teaching Food at Higher Levels

Posted by Nancy Callan on 17 July 2012 | 0 Comments

Tags: food, intermediate ESL, EFL, free worksheet, photocopiable, diet, reading, communicative, jigsaw, cooperative learning, ENL, ELL, EFL, ESOL

If you're like me, you like to teach your food unit during the summer when the grocery stores are full of fresh produce and farmers' markets are in full swing. 

Food seems to be a universally well received topic among students, no matter the level. Just because your students have moved beyond learning the names of common fruit and vegetables does not mean they are too high level to get something out of a food unit.

Mark's Lunch (in photocopiable Callan's Contemporary Jigsaws 2) is a jigsaw with some challenging vocabulary for intermediate levels. The story centers around a man with considerable dietary restrictions ordering food in a restaurant. After students have learned their part about his dietary restrictions, they come together to look at a restaurant menu and decide, given his budget, what he will order. The story makes use of vocabulary such as: allergic, antioxidants, caffeine, cholesterol, dairy products, insomnia, lactose intolerant, vitamin. Click on the image below to view this resource. 

Another interesting activity for a higher intermediate ESL/EFL class is a reading I've taken from New York Times Bestseller Food Your Miracle Medicine by Jean Carper. The reading talks about what you would eat if you were a newborn infant and could eat right the rest of your life to avoid cancer. 

I've copied that one page on anti-cancer foods from the book for you to download, for non-commercial, educational purposes only. View it here. 

I've made a worksheet to accompany the reading that asks students to fill in the foods from the article in the correct categories. It's a challenging assignment to complete, because of the complex sentence structure in the reading. You are welcome to photocopy and use in your classes for free. View it large on your computer here and download and print it if you want. Let me know how it works in your classroom! Enjoy!