Why elephants never forget

 Advanced lesson plan (B1 and above): Why elephants never forget -BUY ME A COFFEE if you like my FREE ESL content

Elephants have famously long memories: they can remember people who have hurt them and helped them many decades after the event. 

In this B1/C1 worksheet, students will learn a host of astounding facts about these gentle giants. Also, they will study six elephant-related idioms, read an ancient Indian allegory about the flappy-eared beasts, and more!

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Lesson activities:

1) To warm up, students will read six pun-ny jokes about elephants, and discuss times they've seen elephants in person or on TV. 

2) Students will watch a short video (5:22) from Ted-ED about elephants and their fantastic memories. Key vocabulary: companions, boast, encephalisation quotient, matriarch, to exact revenge.

3) Next, students will see six elephant-related idioms: the elephant in the room, to see pink elephants, a white elephant, to ring a bell, to be in one's ivory tower, to tickle the ivories. They will get a chance to see them in sentences, and to create their own sentences with these idioms. 

4) Finally, they will read an ancient Indian parable about six blind men in a village who are introduced to an elephant for the first time. They each touch different parts of the elephant, and consequently come to different conclusions about its nature: it is a spear (says the man who touches its tusk), it is a rope (says the man who touches its tail), it is a wall (says the man who touches its stomach), it is a snake (says the man who touches its trunk), etc. The parable is a perfect departure point for a conversation about truth, subjectivity, perspective, and more. Key vocabulary: trample, graceful, limber, scoff.