S2E26 - Nothing Behind You

Objective & content

In this episode, Stella is about to get into a car when Harper and her sister Wren help her check who is waiting inside. The next morning at the gallery, Rodrigo shows Cole and Mason the real contract and cancels it; Brody is left behind and Diane reacts in the final hallway scene. The grammar focus is reported speech (Rodrigo: "You told him this was a gift, Cole.") together with modal perfects such as "This contract should never have been written this way." Learners develop listening comprehension and vocabulary around contracts and trust, then take the in-app quiz.

Pedagogical guide

The lesson (50 minutes, B1-) pairs a safety theme with a language review. Keep the tone calm and practical (how to check a stranger online, who to tell) and do not ask learners to share personal experiences. After the listening, learners report what characters said and comment on what each person should have done. A support track ([S]) offers sentence frames ("Cole should have ______.") and an extension track ([A]) asks for original sentences with "because".

Suggested procedure

1. (4 min) Activate prior knowledge: "Who can you trust online?" Pairs suggest how to check that a person is real.
2. (6 min) Preview six words: contract, clause, summary, minor, hide, skip.
3. (5 min) First listen without interruption; ask for the main topic.
4. (10 min) Second listen with three pauses (the street scene, Rodrigo's arrival, Mason speaking to Cole) and one question at each.
5. (6 min) Comprehension check with five questions.
6. (4 min) Vocabulary practice: matching game or the vocabulary tasks of the student sheet.
7. (7 min) Grammar focus: three script lines on the board, first reported speech, then modal perfects; learners write sentences.
8. (5 min) Speaking extension in pairs: a friend has thirty seconds to ask three questions about a message from a stranger.
9. (3 min) Optional writing: what should Mason have done before he signed, and what must he do now?

Materials & prerequisites

• The student sheet and the teacher sheet (PDF and HTML) from the episode's printables, and the lesson plan.
• The audio of the episode or the Academy app, and the in-app quiz.
• Paper for pair work and sentence strips.
• Learners should already know the simple past and should have, could have forms in outline.

Curriculum alignment

Cycle 4, class of 3e, axis "school and society" (`c4-school-and-society`), with the B1- half-level as the target.