Rain-Related Vocabulary and Activities for ESL Students

There are tons of ways to express the fact that there is moisture in the air in English, whether it be rain, snow, sleet, hail, humidity, etc. It seems there are even more ways to describe the types of rain alone that we experience. Is it showery, rainy, drizzling, or what out there? If one doesn't speak English as a first language, differentiating between the various types of rain can be a bit daunting.

Rain vocabulary seems to revolve around whether the rain is coming down a lot, a little, or somewhere in between the two. Some rain-related phrases and words that are helpful for English language learners to know are:

drizzle/drizzling

thunderstorm

flood out

flood

showery/shower

raining cats and dogs

downpour

heavens opening

heavy/light rain

soft/hard rain

An activity to help explain the different types of rain one might experience is to watch this video where people make the sounds of rain with their bodies. They proceed through the various stages of a rainstorm from beginning to end. Students can identify what type of rain they think each section of the presentation is representing. Students could then try the activity for themselves to see if they are able to recreate the "drizzle, "showery," "downpour," and "heavy/light" rain sections.

For discussion, students could ask each other whether they have ever been "flooded out." Whether they have or haven't, students could describe to each other in pairs what they might/have experience(d) if they were at home and water started to rise around them from a bad storm.

Another activity would be for students to do a writing activity where they use the vocabulary to describe their favorite types of rain, or perhaps to tell a personal narrative about a time they were caught in the rain. They could then share their brief compositions with the class.

Students could take a look at weather in cities and regions around the country on the Internet or in newspapers and see if they can identify the vocabulary words describing different type of rain the various areas would receive in the coming week. A variation on this is to place students into pairs or small groups and have them be "forecasters" for the upcoming week. They could describe different types of rain that the community could expect in the coming days.