Do your English learners ever ask you for podcast recommendations to listen to outside of class?

We love the long-running BBC radio show, ‘Desert Island Discs’, where a famous ‘castaway’ chooses 8 songs they would take to a desert island. However, we realise that the prospect of listening to a full 45 minute episode is a little daunting to some students.

So, we designed this 1 hour lesson plan for you to introduce your students to the show, and improve their listening skills at the same time.

We chose 3 of Desert Island Discs’ most notable celebrity guests (with 3 different accents), and selected just one short clip from each. There are tons of opportunities for speaking practice as you go, and your students will love hearing about David Beckham’s time in Madrid, Cillian Murphy’s childhood car journeys, and Whoopi Goldberg’s love of Celia Cruz.

This is a lesson plan that we use again and again with our own classes, and it always goes down a storm - we hope your students enjoy it as much as ours have!