Links for ESL Lesson on Cooking

Kitchen from Wikipedia Commons

Cooking is an essential skill for everyone and learning the language for cooking will help your ESL students feel more competent and able to take care of themselves. This is a great topic because cooking and food tie us together.

As a tutor, I am currently focusing on teaching cooking terms and vocabulary with my student who cooks everyday for her family. 

When planning a lesson on cooking, here are some links to help you out in your planning. Here is a place for conversation questions about food and eating in general. This is the way I usually start my tutoring sessions. Conversation at the beginning of a session helps everyone feel comfortable.

Here is a link to a worksheet from BusyTeacher. This sheet has a recipe for French Toast and asks you to match recipe steps with pictures.  This is good for reinforcing vocabulary already learned.

To use these worksheets, you do need to sign up for their service but it is a very quick signup and can be done through Facebook. They have a plethora of excellent worksheets for your perusal.

There are many picture dictionaries online but many are not really suitable for printing off. This list of kitchen pictures and words on cooking utensils has a few choices but it not really exhaustive. It's a good start, though!

This is an excellent resource that is designed for kids to learn about cooking but it is very suitable for ESL learners. It is a list of common cooking terms with great definitions.  

Here is a list from Squidoo that features over 100 words on cooking and food. This list looks like it would be more suitable for the more intermediate students.

Here is another ESL cooking resource that features a series of yes/no questions about cooking. These are good for reinforcing newly learned or slightly familiar vocabulary. 

This package of PowerPoints are a series that features cooking vocabulary. 

I also found some great re-usable photos on Free Digital Photos. I did a search for spices and found quite a few. These photos can be downloaded but be sure to read the terms of agreement that state you must give credit to the site.

And finally, some dialogues on the topic of making dinner. I usually feature one or two dialogues at the end of my beginner lessons because it gives the student a chance to practice what they have been learning.

See this article for more ESL teaching ideas. and check out this compilation of teaching articles by this same author.