Speaking and listening – Pre-intermediate to Upper-intermediate

Let’s talk about

SUPERSTITION
Superstition: a belief not based on reason or fact, but on old ideas about luck and magic

Are you superstitious? Who’s the most superstitious Have you ever visited a fortune
If so, give examples. person you know? teller?
If not, explain why. Talk about him or her. What did he or she predict?

Do you read the horoscope?

What’s your star sign? Which sign of the Chinese
Do you believe in it?
How many signs of the zodiac zodiac were you born under?
Has it ever come true?
do you know? How many do you know?

Do you believe in astrology?

Have you ever eaten in a
What are lucky or unlucky
Chinese restaurant?
numbers?
Did you get a fortune cookie?
Do you believe in ghosts?
Have you ever seen one?
Talk about it.

What’s a lucky charm?

What’s the strangest thing
that has ever happened to you?
Talk about it.
Has a dream ever come true?
Give examples.
Can dreams predict the
Do you have one?
future? Talk about it.

What are things that are What are things that are Do you believe in UFOs?
considered unlucky? considered lucky? Are we alone in the universe?
Explain. Explain. Explain.

Do you believe in reincarnation? What’s the strangest old wives’

Do you believe in fate (= power
(= born in another body after death) tale you’ve ever heard?
believed to control all events)?
Why or why not? (= a superstitious belief or story
Why or why not?
belonging to traditional folklore)

Lucky (L), unlucky (U) or

neither (x)
in your country?
meet a black cat
break a mirror
four-leaf clover
Friday the 13th
horseshoe over the door
open umbrella indoors
the number 13
the number 4
Aquarius Gemini Sagittarius
the number 8
Aries Leo Scorpio
the number 9
Cancer Libra Taurus
touch or knock on wood
Capricor
n Pisces Virgo walk under a ladder