Making Friends as an Adult
This B1 lesson explores making friends as an adult through reading, vocabulary, and meaningful discussions. Students learn practical friendship vocabulary like reconnect, foundation, and bestie while discussing real challenges adults face when building new connections. The activities balance language practice with personal reflection on friendships.
Lesson overview
- Learn vocabulary related to friendships and adult social connections
- Practice reading comprehension with research-based article about forming friendships
- Develop speaking skills through discussions about friendship qualities and experiences
- Build confidence expressing opinions on friendship topics and personal relationships
Student's Version (Light/Dark)
Teacher's Version (Answer Keys)
Printable Classroom Version (A4)
| Level | Vocabulary | Lesson Time |
| B1 / Intermediate | 8 words | 60 min |
Vocabulary
- reconnect
- tough
- foundation
- turn into
- perspective
- bestie
- compliment
- match
Contents
- Lead-in
- Vocabulary match
- Discussion
- Reading
- Vocabulary practice
- Speaking
- Agree or disagree
- Speaking
Start with the lead-in questions to get students sharing personal friendship stories. These questions work well because everyone can contribute something about their friends. Listen for vocabulary students already know and gaps you’ll need to fill. The question about social media usually sparks debate, which warms up the class nicely.
Move into the vocabulary matching activity before the reading. Pre-teaching words like reconnect, foundation, and tough makes the reading smoother for B1 learners. After matching, have students make example sentences with 2-3 words. This checks if they really understand the meanings beyond the definitions.
Do the reading in chunks, stopping after each section to discuss the reflection questions. The research about 50, 90, and 200 hours always gets a reaction. Students start doing math in their heads about their own friendships. After reading about reconnecting with old friends, students often want to share their own stories. Let this happen. The coworker and workout class sections give concrete examples that B1 students can relate to even if their lives look different.
Wrap up with the sentence completion activity and the agree/disagree statements. The statement about men and women being friends gets the most passionate responses in my experience. I’ve had classes spend 20 minutes on just that one statement. The 3-minute speaking topics work better as homework if you run out of time. B1 students need prep time for extended speaking, so springing it on them rarely goes well.
