“I’m down to chill. Hit me up when you guys hang out.” How many of your students could understand that phrase? Utilizing slang is an essential skill needed to function in today’s society. Not only does slang occur in everyday social interactions, it is also used in classrooms by peers and professors. In spite of this, many ESL students are not taught slang in preparation for university life. As a result, these students struggle to understand lectures and participate in discussions that include colloquial language. By teaching slang in the classroom, we can prepare our students for real world interactions.

Lesson Preparation
Choose which slang words to teach and write them on the board. The PowerPoint includes the following words:

1. Shady
2. Ballin’
3. Hit up
4. Hang out
5. Ditch
6. Down
7. Bomb
8. Tight
9. Lame
10. Bounce

If you want to teach different words, you can find a great list of common U.S. slang words at UW-Plattville’s slang page.

Print out Worksheet 1 (Slang Worksheet), one for every two students.

Print out Worksheet 2 (Scenario Sheet), cut the slips of paper for the final activity, and place them in the paper bag.

Warm-Up (10 minutes)

Attention Grabber
Start the class by playing the video: “Dr. House on American and British Slang” (4:15). Explain that it is a video of an American talk show host and her British guest. Both are presenting slang words from their respective countries while the other tries to guess their meanings. The video is subtitled in English, so students can read along.

• Pause the video at each slang word and encourage students to guess the meaning.
• Because there is no context given with the words, it will be extremely difficult to guess. Therefore, keep this activity light-hearted and have students throw out whatever silly guesses they come up with.
• Once the video is finished, introduce the topic of slang and open the PowerPoint slides.

Presentation (15 minutes)

Present the slides from the downloadable PowerPoint. With each slang word, emphasize the visual mnemonic device that links the literal meaning with the new figurative meaning.

• For example, in order to teach the word shady, the PowerPoint slide contains a picture of a suspicious-looking man under the shade of a tree.
• This visual and literal connection will help students remember the definitions of the slang words.
• Look under the comments section in each PowerPoint slide to see how to connect the image with the slang word. It is important to give sample sentences, so that students can see how to use the slang words in context.
• Through the sample sentences, show any collocational or grammatical information that students need to know in order to use the slang properly.
• For example, continuing with the example of shady, include the fact that it is an adjective used to describe untrustworthy people or interactions.
• Then give a few sample sentences: “The shady jeweler was secretly stealing diamonds every day. The deal between the jeweler and the gangsters seemed really shady.”

Practice (15 minutes)

Speaking Practice

• After going through all of the slang words on the PowerPoint, review by showing the same pictures again.
• Have students try to remember the slang word and meaning through the visual information.
• Make sure they are practicing saying the words out loud with the correct pronunciation.

Pair Work

• Students are given the Slang Worksheet and work in pairs.
• The worksheet contains eight formal sentences with specific sections underlined. Students rewrite the sentences, changing the underlined portions to synonymous slang words from the lesson.
• Once they are finished, students volunteer their answers. Correct any incorrect usage or pronunciation of the target words.

Production (20 minutes)

Impromptu Dialogue Game

• Separate students into groups of relatively equal skill levels and bring out the paper bag filled with paper slips from the Scenario Worksheet.
• Pick a slip of paper from the bag and read the scenario out loud. Give the entire class 15 seconds to create a short dialogue between two or more students using slang to fit the scenario. (Consider extending this time for lower-level students.) For example, a scenario might be going to the movies.
• Student A: Wow, that movie was really lame!
• Student B: Yea, I’m glad we bounced early.
• Students can look at the slang worksheet from the pair work as a reference during the 15 seconds.
• Each group, one at a time, performs its dialogue in front of the class.
• Give a point to every group that uses the slang correctly. Give a bonus point to the most creative group of that round.
• Then, pick out another scenario from the bag and start the process again.
• Different students must perform each round in order to give everyone in the group a chance to speak.
• Groups cannot use the same slang word twice in a row. Encourage groups to try out different slang words.

Closing (5 minutes)

Warm-Down
Once the game is finished, add up the total scores for each group and declare a winner. Close the lesson by explaining that these words have special registers, meaning they are appropriate for certain contexts but not for others.

Homework
As a homework assignment, have students interview native speakers about when and where they would use the slang words learned in the lesson. Students must take notes on the results of their interview and report back next class.

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Eugene S. Lee has a Masters in TESOL from California State University, Fullerton and works as an ESL instructor at Bethesda University of California. He has worked in South Korea as a high school EFL teacher and volunteered as a tutor to North Korean refugees. Prior to that, Eugene lived in Cambodia for 1 year, volunteering as an afterschool English teacher.