What could be more exciting than setting off for a sea voyage around the world? This is a Directions EFL ESL lesson plan for primary school kids of around 8 to 12 years old. You could probably adapt it for teenagers too. It will last about one hour and your class will learn about oceans, continents and cardinal directions and how to ask for and give directions. This would be great as part of a wider project about transport through history or trade and travel but works perfectly well as a stand-alone lesson too. So hoist the main sail and be ready for pirates, we’re going on a sea voyage!
For this Sea Voyage Directions EFL ESL lesson plan, you will need:
- A whiteboard or blackboard and markers or chalks
- Paper and coloring markers
- A printable world map, one per child or pair of children, something like this would be fine
Songs and Videos for A Sea Voyage Directions EFL ESL lesson plan:
- Cardinal Directions Song by Mr R’s Songs for Teaching
- Pirate Captain Jay Goes Sailing by Jay Tucci
Introduction – We’re going on a voyage!
Start your lesson with your usual Hello routine or use one of my favorite ways to start a lesson. Then start introducing your subject. As this is a class for older kids, they will probably already have some idea of what a sailing ship is and of some of the geography that we’re going to be looking at in this lesson. So I would start by drawing a map of the world on the board and see if they can guess what it is. Don’t worry, it doesn’t have to be either accurate or well drawn. Just draw a rough outline of the continents so they are reasonably recognizable and in more or less the right location in relation to each other.
What can you see?
Together with the class, label the map together. What are the names of the different continents? What about the oceans? Can they label any particular countries? Can they find where they are right now? Get them to ask each other questions about different locations to see if they can locate them on the map. Label as many continent, oceans and countries as possible.
A song about cardinal directions
When your map is finished and labelled with as many different places as possible, draw a compass rose in the top corner and then label the compass points with North, South, East and West. Then learn and sing the Cardinal Directions song.
It’s time to set sail!
Draw a sailing boat in one corner of your map, by Australia maybe. What is it? Explain that it is a boat and that we are going on a voyage. Then watch Pirate Jay’s video about sailing. Drill the vocabulary: anchor, hoist the sails. Tell the kids that we are going to sail from Australia to Canada and that we need to find a route. How do I get to Canada? Ask them to give you directions. Hoist the sails, sail west, sail past South Africa, anchor, hoist the sails, sail north, continue north and sail west until you arrive. As they give you directions, mark the route on the map. Now sail from Canada to somewhere else. Do this a few times until they’ve got the hang of it.
Where do you want to go?
Put the class into pairs or small groups and give each of them a map. Now it’s their turn. They need to take turns asking for directions: How do I get to…? and then giving directions: sail north, sail west etc. Don’t forget to tell them to anchor when they want to stop and change direction and hoist the sails before leaving again. Let everyone have a go and change partners a few times. If you are feeling really ambitious, you could make a giant floor map with different countries in different areas of the classroom and have the kids pretend to be the ship going in different directions.
Now make your own map
Give the kids paper and markers and let them make their own map for their voyage. It could be a treasure map with the route marked out to find the treasure or a map for a journey around the world with different places they want to anchor. Ask them to describe their voyage to the class when they have finished with the different directions they will take.
Conclusion
If you still have some time, sing the Cardinal Directions song again and then finish the lesson with your usual Goodbye routine. If you’re stuck for ideas for this, you can find some of my favorite Goodbye songs here.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this Directions EFL ESL lesson plan. If you try it with your class, please let me know how it goes. If you have any ideas to make it even better, please leave a comment below. You can find more lesson plans covering a wide range of age groups and topics here and lots more teaching ideas too. To stay in touch with new posts, you can follow the GoogooEnglish Facebook page or sign up for email updates below.