ESL lesson plan | C1 | How Wordle conquered the world

Summary

This downloadable PDF lesson plan for English teachers explores the viral success of the game Wordle. This ESL class material for C1 students uses a video and engaging activities to teach advanced vocabulary, idioms, and grammar related to technology and trends.

This 90-minute lesson plan guides students through the phenomenon of Wordle's success. Activities include a warm-up discussion on viral trends, a vocabulary matching task, and a video comprehension exercise. Students will learn idioms related to habits and popularity, practice using gerunds and infinitives, and conclude with a creative group project where they design and pitch their own viral game. This class material is designed to spark conversation and practical language use.

Access lesson

Activities

Students start by discussing viral trends and simple online games, sharing their own experiences with popular apps like Wordle to activate prior knowledge and prepare for the lesson's topic.
A vocabulary matching exercise introduces key terms like 'gimmick' and 'explosive growth' before students watch a video about Wordle's rise to fame and complete a true/false comprehension task.
The lesson includes a gap-fill activity focusing on useful idioms like 'hooked on' and 'word of mouth' to help students discuss habits and popularity in a more natural, fluent way.
A dedicated grammar section explains the difference between gerunds and infinitives, followed by a practice exercise where students complete sentences related to the video's content.
The lesson culminates in a collaborative speaking task where students work in groups to design and pitch their own simple, viral game, applying the vocabulary and grammar learned in class.

00:00 All across social media, cryptic colored cubes. And from Twitter users to celebrities, everyone seems to be bragging about their scores playing a game called Wordle.

00:08 Designed by a software engineer named Josh Wardle for his partner because she loved word games like the ones in the New York Times, Wordle.

00:16 Telling the New York Times soon friends and family were hooked, and within months over a quarter of a million people were trying to solve the Wordle of the day.

00:23 It's a roller coaster of emotions. Is it part of your daily routine now? Every morning, or if I stay up till midnight.

00:30 The layout is super simple. No app, just a website without ads or money-making gimmicks. Its explosive growth spread mostly by word of mouth feels like everyone's playing it.

00:39 For British fans of an old game show called Lingo, the five-letter word guessing might feel a little familiar. Playing P-L-A-I-N.

00:50 But in this game, no opening hints as you try to solve a five-letter word in six turns or less.

00:56 So let's say we try "stood." Ah, so see that yellow there? That tells us we got a couple letters right but in the wrong place.

01:03 Okay, so how about "dotes"? Well, the green means the letter O is in the right place.

01:08 How about "toads"? Now we've got two letters in the right place and we know there's an A somewhere.

01:14 How about T-O-D-A-Y? But in real life it is a lot tougher. Just ask the queen of Scrabble, my genius wife.

01:24 Okay, about this? No.

01:30 What if I don't get it? Then I am the moral champion of the house.

01:35 Could there still be another A in this word though? Haha, big spoiler alert, the answer is yes. Sometimes a letter is used twice, like in "banal."

01:44 Banal, is that your final answer? Yes.

01:49 Okay, but did you Google it? Yeah, I Googled a lot of words that were not words.

01:54 Tomorrow, no Googling.

01:56 Now one of the biggest things that keeps people coming back, it only lets you play once a day, which leaves you jonesing for so much more.

02:03 Guys, I guess I get it. Yeah, so wait, are you the world king of the house? I am right now.

02:10 Yeah, and I understand Al plays too. They say it's supposed to take 3 minutes. Takes way longer than that.

02:16 That's fun. I love it. All right, thank you. That's some good clean fun.

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Vocabulary focus

This lesson focuses on vocabulary related to trends, popularity, and habits. Key terms include cryptic, to brag, gimmick, explosive growth, and word of mouth. Students will also learn and practice idiomatic phrases such as to be hooked on, jonesing for, daily routine, and a roller coaster of emotions through contextual exercises.

Grammar focus

The grammar section focuses on the correct usage of gerunds and infinitives. Students will review the rules for when to use the -ing form versus the 'to + verb' form after certain verbs and to express purpose. They will then apply this knowledge in a contextualized practice exercise related to the lesson's theme of gaming and motivation.

How Wordle conquered the world

Summary

Activities

Vocabulary focus

Grammar focus

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