Summary
This engaging ESL lesson equips B1-B2 students with the essential skills and vocabulary to identify and protect themselves from common online scams. Through various activities, learners explore travel booking fraud, fake customer service ploys, and social media marketplace deceptions. They will learn to spot red flags, understand terms like phishing and fraudulent, and practice communication strategies for staying safe online. The material aims to boost digital literacy and consumer awareness.
Activities
Warm-up discussion: Students share personal experiences and thoughts about online safety, discussing types of suspicious offers and personal protective measures they take when shopping or booking online.
Essential scam vocabulary: Learners deduce meanings of key terms like fake, targeted ad, scammer, and red flag from context within sentences, then match them to their definitions, building foundational knowledge.
Common scam types: Students complete a gap-fill exercise using a word bank to learn about typical online scams, including fake travel booking sites, fraudulent customer service numbers, and social media marketplace dangers.
Video comprehension: Travel scam warnings: Students watch an authentic video about travel scams and complete true/false questions and a note-completion task to understand common tactics and expert advice on avoiding them.
Spotting red flags: Learners analyze a list of online situations and decide if they represent a 'red flag' (suspicious) or a 'green flag' (likely safe), developing their critical judgment skills for online interactions.
Protective phrases and actions: Students match useful phrases and actions for self-protection (e.g., "Let me verify this on the official website") with scenarios where they would be most appropriate, enhancing practical response skills.
Scam or safe? Analyzing scenarios: Participants evaluate realistic online scenarios, determine if they are scams or safe, and justify their reasoning using vocabulary and concepts learned throughout the lesson, applying their knowledge practically.
Create a scam prevention checklist: Students consolidate their learning by creating a personalized checklist of at least eight crucial steps to verify before making any online booking or purchase, fostering proactive safety habits.
Role play: Helping a friend: In pairs, students role-play situations where one has found a seemingly great online deal, and the other helps them identify potential red flags and suggests safer alternatives using learned communication strategies.
Vocabulary focus
This lesson introduces crucial vocabulary for understanding and discussing online fraud. Key terms include types of deception (fake, fraudulent), perpetrators (scammer), warning signs (red flag, suspicious), and related concepts like targeted ad, fine print, third-party, double-check, legitimate, verify, protect, cautious, steal, special offer, and customer service.
Grammar focus
While not a primary grammar lesson, students will practice using the imperative mood for giving advice and warnings (e.g., "Double-check the URL," "Be cautious"). The lesson also encourages forming questions to seek clarification and using modal verbs (e.g., "This might be a scam," "You should verify") when discussing possibilities and giving recommendations.
