Level 1 and Level 2 - Comparing Ideas
2019 has been the year of activism and protest. From climate change to veganism and animal rights, people have been using their voices to get their messages across to society. It is important that we let our students know that they have a right to peacefully protest, so we decided to teach a Functional English skill through this topic.
For the start of the session, I placed random debate topics for each student group. The topics included the following: climate change doesn't matter; women can't be mechanics; everyone should be vegan; footballers are overpaid and LGBT-inclusive curriculum should be made compulsory in schools. The groups had 3 minutes to discuss each topic before moving to the next one. We then opened the debates to the whole class. At the end of this activity, I asked the group if they could find something in common between all of the debate topics before explaining that all of them have resulted in protests.
The next task included a discussion in pairs about what you would protest about and why. This followed on nicely with deciding which is more effective - peaceful or violent protests?
Greta's Speech
The next part of the lesson involved showing Greta Thunberg's speech and asking for viewpoints and why they think the speech is effective. This opened further discussions, especially how one young woman can make such an impact on our world.
Reading/Comparing Ideas
The final part included reading through 3 similar texts based on climate change protests across the world. I posed the questions - how are they similar and how are they different before letting them tackled a comparison style question.
To access the resources, click on the link below:
Debate Topics
Source A - Protests in Bury St Edmunds - taken from Bury Free Press
Source B - Protest in Australia - taken from The Guardian
Source C - Protest in Manchester - taken from The Guardian
Level 1 - Comparison Question
Level 2 - Comparison Question
2019 has been the year of activism and protest. From climate change to veganism and animal rights, people have been using their voices to get their messages across to society. It is important that we let our students know that they have a right to peacefully protest, so we decided to teach a Functional English skill through this topic.
For the start of the session, I placed random debate topics for each student group. The topics included the following: climate change doesn't matter; women can't be mechanics; everyone should be vegan; footballers are overpaid and LGBT-inclusive curriculum should be made compulsory in schools. The groups had 3 minutes to discuss each topic before moving to the next one. We then opened the debates to the whole class. At the end of this activity, I asked the group if they could find something in common between all of the debate topics before explaining that all of them have resulted in protests.
The next task included a discussion in pairs about what you would protest about and why. This followed on nicely with deciding which is more effective - peaceful or violent protests?
Greta's Speech
The next part of the lesson involved showing Greta Thunberg's speech and asking for viewpoints and why they think the speech is effective. This opened further discussions, especially how one young woman can make such an impact on our world.
Reading/Comparing Ideas
The final part included reading through 3 similar texts based on climate change protests across the world. I posed the questions - how are they similar and how are they different before letting them tackled a comparison style question.
To access the resources, click on the link below:
Debate Topics
Source A - Protests in Bury St Edmunds - taken from Bury Free Press
Source B - Protest in Australia - taken from The Guardian
Source C - Protest in Manchester - taken from The Guardian
Level 1 - Comparison Question
Level 2 - Comparison Question
This post first appeared on Free Quality Functional English Resources & Teachi, please read the originial post: here
