How Coffee Got Its Names

Lesson overview

This coffee English lesson explores the fascinating origins behind espresso drink names through video, vocabulary building, and café-themed role plays. Students discover why a cappuccino resembles a friar’s hood and how a cortado gets “cut” with milk while mastering coffee-specific vocabulary. The coffee lesson plan combines cultural insights about café culture with practical communication skills for ordering drinks. Engaging speaking activities include menu analysis and barista-customer role plays that build confidence. Perfect for upper-intermediate learners interested in food culture and everyday English conversations in coffee shops.

Teaching guide

Lead-in

This opening section establishes relevance by connecting students’ personal experiences with coffee culture to the lesson content. Students describe coffee habits in their country using provided vocabulary like “daily habit,” “specialty,” “third-wave,” and “on the go.” This coffee English lesson encourages natural fluency while pre-teaching useful collocations about café culture. Next, students examine images of various coffee drinks (espresso, cappuccino, flat white, macchiato, cortado, etc.) and identify which they’d confidently order and which they’d avoid. This dual-purpose task in the coffee lesson plan assesses prior knowledge while creating curiosity about the naming origins explored later.

Vocabulary preview, Definitions, Video preview

Students first self-assess their knowledge by checking off familiar terms like “pressure,” “grind,” “ratio,” “microfoam,” and “originate,” then create example sentences. This diagnostic approach in the coffee ESL lesson helps upper-intermediate learners identify gaps before encountering these words in context. The definitions provide clear, accessible explanations of coffee-specific terminology and religious vocabulary (friar, robe, hood) needed for the cappuccino etymology. The video preview activates schema through a true/false prediction task about espresso drink names, encouraging critical thinking and engagement. This prediction strategy is particularly effective as it creates a genuine information gap that motivates careful listening throughout the coffee lesson.

Video, Comprehension, Practice, Questions

Students watch a short YouTube video explaining how espresso drinks got their names, then verify their predictions and complete targeted comprehension tasks. The lesson plan on coffee includes checking the common “expresso” vs “espresso” misconception, which addresses a frequent learner error. Comprehension questions require students to match drinks with their naming origins (color, cutting action, extraction method, etc.), ensuring they’ve grasped the etymological explanations. The practice section uses gap-fills to consolidate vocabulary in context, while discussion questions push students toward critical analysis of naming conventions, menu design, and linguistic borrowing. This scaffolded progression from literal comprehension to evaluative thinking supports upper-intermediate skill development in this coffee English lesson.

Speaking, Role plays

The speaking section begins with a comparative analysis task where students examine two café menus (one with 35 drinks, one with 8) and argue for their choice, then switch perspectives to consider alternative viewpoints. This perspective-taking exercise in the coffee lesson plan develops argumentative fluency and rhetorical flexibility. Two role plays provide controlled practice: in the first, one student plays a confused customer while their partner explains the menu as a barista, practicing clarification strategies and simplification skills. The second role play stages a debate between a home coffee lover and a café enthusiast, allowing students to practice expressing preferences, defending positions, and critiquing opposing views. These communicative activities in this coffee ESL lesson consolidate vocabulary while developing real-world conversational competence around café culture topics.