I will start the lesson by showing Ss the first slide of the presentation. Then, I will ask them if they have watched any good films recently. “Which was the last film that you watched?” I will nominate Ss to answer the question. If they have not watched any film recently, I would ask them if they have read any good books recently. Ask students to describe the gist of the film/book that they mentioned.

I will show the Ss the listening task (google forms). Tell them that they are going to listen to 3 friends discuss a movie that they went to see together. Ask Ss to try to identify the name of the film. Ask them to identify, according to the conversation, who liked the film, who hated it and who didn’t understand it. Send the link to the Ss (Google forms). Start playing the audio. After the track ends, give them 30 more seconds to finish the task. Give OCFB and check the correct answers with the entire class. Answers: What was the name of the movie? Cowboys and Aliens Who liked the movie? Amy Who really hated it? Ross Who didn’t understand it? Marco Show the slides again. Ask Ss if they remember what “vague language” is (from last week’s lesson). Nominate one Ss that was present last week to provide a definition. Tell them that they will listen to the audio again, but this time they will be able to read the transcript. While they listen to it, they will have to underline all the words/phrases that the three friends say and that can be classified as vague language. Do an example with them: They will have to underline the words “a bit of a mess”. Send the link to the presentation and give one slide to each student. Play the audio track. Give Ss 30 seconds to finish. Check with them the vocabulary they underlined (OCFB). Pay closer attention to the vague language they were not able to identify.

Meaning: Show students a slide with 5 sentences that describe possible uses of vague language. Ask students to identify, according to what they were able to understand from the previous text, if the statements correspond to real uses of vague language (statement is true) or if they don’t correspond to correct uses of vague language (statement is false). Do the first example with them. Give Ss 30 seconds to decide if the statements are true or false. Check with them the correct answers (OCFB). Answers: a) To express general quantities / when we don’t know exactly how much or how many. True b) To intensify or soften the tone of speech. True c) To talk about nonspecific objects or persons (vague nouns or pronouns). True d) To make groups or categories / shorten a list by grouping things into a general category. True e) To write a report on our progress in a project that we are developing for work /school / university. False, VL is usually reserved for informal speaking. Show Ss the next slide which has 8 sentences that use vague language. Ask the Ss to work in pairs to find among the 8 sentences at least one example for each of the uses of vague language that were studied on the previous slide. Do the first example with them. Assign one slide to two students and tell them that they will have 2 min to work in pairs and complete the exercise. Suggest that one of the Ss share the slides in the BOR. After they finish the exercise, I will give OCFB and check the answers with the entire class. Note: some sentences may be used as examples for more than one category. Suggested answers: a) Express general quantities: a bit of, plenty of b) Intensify or soften the tone of speech: rather, pretty. c) Talk about nonspecific objects or persons (vague nouns or pronouns): something/someone (like that), stuff. d) Make groups or categories: that sort of thing, stuff like that. If students classified some phrases incorrectly, I would try to elicit the correct classification by asking some CCQs (example: which one sounds stronger: the movie is silly, or the movie is pretty silly? Answer: pretty silly. Therefore “pretty” intensifies the tone of the speech). Form: I will show Ss the next slide which contains a table with more examples of vague language. Tell them that they can save this table in case they need these expressions in the future. Check some of the phrases in the table by asking Ss to give some examples with them. Ask CCQs to elicit how the vague language is constructed. Example: a bit of + noun vs a bit + adjective. Identify which phrases are used with nouns, adjectives, or on their own. Pronunciation: Show students 4 expressions that use vague language. Tell Ss that they will listen to an audio track. While they listen to it, Ss will try to identify if the vague language is being stress or not. They will also try to identify and mark the linking sounds between words. Give each student one slide to work on. After playing the audio twice, I will check with them the correct answers (vague language is usually unstressed and weak forms are used). Finish the analysis with some drilling exercises.

After analysing the language, show the Ss the slide with the controlled practice task. Tell them to fill the gaps with the correct use of vague language. Send them the link to the exercise again. Give each student a slide and tell them that they have 1 min to finish the exercise. After they finish the exercise, I will send them to BORs (pairs) to compare their answers. Once they are back in the main room, I will play the audio of the conversation so they can check their answers. Check if there are any doubts.

Show Ss the last slide of the presentation. Tell them that they will have to choose a well-known film and describe that film to a partner. They cannot say the name of the film because their partner will try to guess the film with the description. Encourage them to use vague language in their descriptions. I will provide an example of a film. I will ask students to guess the name of the film and to count the number of phrases used for vague language that they can identify. After the example, I will give Ss one minute to prepare. Encourage them to ask each other questions about the films. Open BORs (pairs) and give them 4 min to guess the films. Monitor the BORs and write down the mistakes I can identify. Also identify the correct use of the target language. Do OCFB and DEC. Show Ss 3 or 4 sentences and ask Ss to identify which ones are correct. Identify the mistakes and correct the other sentences. If there is still time left in the class, send Ss to BORs again (different pairs) so they can continue practicing their speaking skills.