Leo!!! Your lessons really have been amazing. I was so disappointed for my own selfish reasons to hear that you were done with teaching. I have used almost all of your lessons and they are always my best ones.. haha. I especially love your 'What is Beauty?' Lesson. I teach at an all girls middle school and it was such an awesome lesson for them. I will be sure to leave a comment on your website. Good luck in all that you plan to do in the future. I have a feeling that you will do very well for yourself. ::*selfish note alert* :: feel free to post any ideas for lessons that you have used in the past.. I am really trying to keep my lessons interesting for these girls and will struggle more now that I don't have your help... haha... thanks... have a great Canadian November 
Sure things, here's a list of past lesson ideas as well as unused ideas. I've decided not to upload certain lessons that were below a certain quality threshold. Only a fraction of my lessons are actually "good", I'd feel guilty sharing the rest.
Used lesson ideas:
1. Can and can't grammar + examples of handicapped people who have become accomplished athletes, scientists or role models.
2. Hand gestures multiple choice quiz - I'd ask students to guess what the meaning of a certain hand gesture is in a certain country. The same gesture can mean the f-word in one country and mean something positive in another.
3. A day in Canada - A day in my life in Canada highlighting the many quirky lifestyle differences. Get a ride to school in the morning (doesn't happen here), hang out by the lockers, eat Mcdonalds for lunch, wear a beater to school, finish school at 3, work part time @15 years of age, no academy, 2 hours of homework, team projects, drive in theatre, big house parties, sleep overs, etc.
4. Friendship - prevalence of boy-girl friendships, multi-cultural friendships, nicknames + make a nickname for your friend activity, observations about what races make friends with what races (e.g. koreans + japanese + taiwanese + hk, singapore + malaysia, vietnam + philippines + laos + thai, east europeans, latin american groups, south american groups, british countries, scandinavian, arabic, etc.), friendships based on similar levels of assimilation ( first generation vs second generation vs third+ generation - e.g. most of my friends are second generation asian because I am), the importance of facebook to maintaining friendships in Canada, types of friends (acquaintance, friend of a friend, stranger, co-worker, family friend, best friend, soul mate, school friend, hobby friend, frenemy, childhood friend, man's best friend, brother from another mother, rival, imaginary friend)
5. Worst case scenario - present various worst case scenarios to the students and ask them for the solution (present as multiple choice for more difficult ones). Example = if you're trapped in a car that fell into a river, how do you escape? A = role one window down, let the water rush in to depressurize, then open the door and swim out. You can't open the door without depressurizing the car first. How do you escape a horde of bees (run away, don't jump into water)? How do you fight dizziness (touch something stable)? If you're attacked by a shark, how do you fight back (hit the eyes)? How do you reduce spiciness (milk)? How do you break a door down? (kick the handle)
6. Money - synonyms for money (cabbage, lettuce, dough, cheddar, bucks, benjamins, clams). money idioms. if i had 1 million dollars writing activity. guess the price activity. i'd show various products from around the world and get the to guess the cost. example = square watermelons on japan, the most expensive bottled water in the world, steak and salad in paraguay, civet coffee beans, coca cola in a welfare state, coffee in west europe, etc.
7. Weird restaurants - tipping customs in the west. tip for haircuts, taxi, delivery, cafes, etc. themed restaurants from around the world (toilet, maid, hospital, vampire, grave, hanging in the sky, under the sea, in pitch black, on a bed, purposely terrible service, ridiculous sized steaks or hamburger themes). korean style (everything at once) vs. french style (multi-course meals and the names of each course) dinners.
8. Stereotypes - what is the korean stereotype in america? (laundromats, manicures, convenience stores, starcraft, nerds, kim yuna, north korea, k-dramas, k-pop). western hair color stereotypes (fiery blonde, classy brunette, creative black and dumb blonde). body shape theory (snobby skinny, funny fat, manly muscular, etc.). eye color stereotypes (carefree blue, mysterious green, friendly hazel, confident gray, trustworthy brown). school stereotypes (jock, band geek, asian nerd, teacher's pet, class clown, superstar, plastics, cheerleaders, king and queen, emo, skaters)
9. Slang - internet acronyms (afk, rofl, imo, gnite), text message english (replace certain sounds with single letters see = c, replace certain sounds with numbers ate = 8, use of symbols starbucks = $*, no caps, abbreviations because = bc, skip vowels however = hwvr. then play a game where you get kids to translate a bunch of heavy text message english)
10. Friendship, Dating and Marriage - show different wedding customs around the world (eating out of a toilet bowl in france, covering the bride with shit and garbage and showing her off around town in scotland, not going to the bathroom for 3 days in malaysia, destroying china in germany, crying for a month in china, kidnapping the bride in germany, kissing everyone of the opposite gender when going to the bathroom in sweden, fattening up the bride in africa). different friendship rituals - kissing cheeks upon meeting in many parts of the world, men holding hands in arabic countries, paying rules in west for dates, chivalry rules, living together before marriage in west, videos of indian marriages, jewish marriages, crazy dance marriages in west.
Unused ideas
Asians in america - model minority theory (asians do better in school, make more money, commit less crime), racism towards asians (example: new york black vs. korean issue), in parts of the world people think koreans are basically chinese or japanese, bananas (asians with white personalities), asians that can't speak their parents' language (third generation koreans + usually), asians in ivy league schools. also, how koreans have the highest drop out rates in ivy league schools, asians-american identity crisis, asian mini-towns (k-town LA), asian fusion food, inter-racial dating, asian female broadcasters, famous asian celebrities (sandra oh)
Happiness - define happiness. which countries are the happiest? (not the richest, it's the ones with the most balance - welfare states or rising economies) what is happiness to different people. in a poor country, it can be simply eating food. for a student, it can be getting into a good university. in a warring country, it can be the knowledge that another family member wont die next week. in a rich country, it could be a mansion and sports cars. types of happiness - material, fulfillment, social, status, love, success, self-improvement, change. koreans are the least happy students on earth (according to oecd). happiness from simple acts (studies showing how smiling and hugging "X" number of times a day can improve life significantly).
Technology in 2025 - refrigerators with glass doors and full oled touch screens, all electric cars, artificial intelligence, gene manipulation, nano technology, stem cell research, mars missions, satellite power generators, mega city projects (giant pyramid concept in tokyo, dubai project being a recent example), manufactured meat, cloaking technology, augmented power suits (military and medical applications), robot maids and assistents being commercially available, replacement of credit cards with mobile cell phone payment tech, artificial limbs that are superior to natural ones (eyes, ears, arms, legs), dream reading and manipulating, commercial space flights and resort packages (virgin airlines), maturation of speech recognition, maturation of instantaneous language translation, holographic projection technology, rate of computer progression (15 years ago it cost us millions to get something that was much slower than an iphone that was the size of a desk. what will the iphone be like in 15 years?)
Vacations - simulate vacation packages to venice, dubai, egypt, north korea, etc. get them to design their own ideal vacation.
Survivor - How do you best survive in the given natural disaster scenarios (similar to worst case scenario idea). post nuclear war (how to grow food, how to make a tent, tools needed), flood (how to get clean water, how to call for help, what to bring, how to stay warm), earthquake (where are the safest places), freezing temperatures (how to make fire?), how to survive in the jungle (what to eat, how to catch food, how to know which way is north, how to stay warm), how to survive a boat sinking, etc.
that took wayyy longer than i thought it would to write. hope it helps!
