The Surprising History of OK – ESL Lesson Plan

Two letters. One word. Used billions of times every day. But where did “OK” actually come from?

In this engaging 60-minute lesson inspired by the Vox video Why we say “OK”, students will uncover the strange and unexpected journey of the world’s most recognisable word. From a corny 1830s Boston joke involving misspelled abbreviations like “oll korrect” to a US presidential campaign, from the telegraph to the moon – OK has quite a story to tell.

Students will develop:

• Listening comprehension through watching and answering questions on an authentic video
• Vocabulary acquisition with eight key words (fad, flailing, crossover, acknowledgment, spur, perpetuate, embedded, obscure)
• Speaking fluency through lead-in and personal response discussions
• Grammar awareness by distinguishing abbreviations from acronyms and using common modern examples
• Cultural knowledge about how language evolves and spreads globally
• Fun, informal communication with modern texting abbreviations (FOMO, TL;DR, SMH, IRL and more)

Perfect for teachers looking for a ready-to-use, video-based lesson that combines history, humour, and real-world language use. Your students will never look at “OK” the same way again.