Carlos Valverde Carlos Valverde

Reading skills
Intermediate level

Description

The lesson is a reading lesson where students talk about the importance of taking care of the environment. Students will develop their reading skills through two steps: for gist and for detail. The class finishes with some though-provoking questions related to the topic developed throughout the lesson.

Materials

Main Aims

  • To provide gist and detailed reading practice using a text about the BBC Ethical man

Subsidiary Aims

  • To provide clarification of of vocabulary related to the conversation of the planet that might be useful to Ss

Procedure

Warmer/Lead-in (2-4 minutes) • To set lesson context and engage students

Show slide of people doing some rubbish as part of a volunteering programme. Parts of the picture will be covered with some boxes and they will be removed gradually to elicit students what they are doing. Ask SS: "Have you ever done something like this before?" A couple of questions are shown for students to answer. 1. How important is it for you to protect the environment? 2. What do you do at home to help the environment? Elicit some suggestions.

Pre-Reading/Listening (4-6 minutes) • To prepare students for the text and make it accessible

Show slide #4 containing a picture and the sentence: "Juston: We changed the light bulbs in our house to energy-saving bulbs". Ask CCQs to check the meaning of energy-saving bulbs. 1. Does an energy-saving bulb use more electricity or less electricity than a normal bulb? (less) 2. Is it good for the environment or bad? (good) Ask SS the part of the speech (adjective) and ask what other words could collocate with it. Model the pronunciation at individual and sentence level and nominate SS to say it again. Show slide #5 containing a picture and the sentence: "Juston: To help the planet, we stopped flying and we got rid of the car. Ask CCQs to check the meaning of get rid of something. 1. If I get rid of something, do I keep it? (no) 2. Do people get rid of things they need or things they don’t need? (don’t need) Ask SS the part of the speech (phrasal verb) and elicit what the stress word is - rid - as it has the main emphasis of the phrase. Model the pronunciation at individual and sentence level and nominate SS to say it again. Show slide #6 containing a picture and the sentence: "Juston: We went on a nightmarish journey on the train, in a heatwave. It was horrible!". Ask CCQs to check the meaning of nightmarish. 1. Is a nightmarish experience relaxing or really terrible? (terrible) 2. If something is nighmarish, would you like to do it again? (No) Ask SS the part of the speech (adjective) and ask what other words could collocate with it. Model the pronunciation at individual and sentence level and nominate SS to say it again. Show slide #7 containing a picture and the sentence: "Juston: We wanted to reduce our impact on the environment, but we only reduced our greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent. Ask CCQs to check the meaning of greenhouse gas emissions. 1.Do greenhouse gases stay in the air or disappear quickly? (stay in the air) 2. Do they make the Earth hotter or colder? (hotter) 3. Are greenhouse gases good or harmful for the environment? (harmful) Ask SS the part of the speech (noun phrase). Model the pronunciation at individual and sentence level and nominate SS to say it again. Share a link to a wordwall activity. Ss do the activity on their own for one minute. OCFB

While-Reading #1 (7-10 minutes) • To provide students with a gist reading task

Introduce Juston Rowlatt to students - show the text on PDF. Tell them that they will read the text to know more about Juston. Indicate they have 3 minutes to focus on the general idea of each paragraph and then, match every paragraph to a summarized idea on G-forms (Reading activity #1). New words are not necessary Ask ICQs: Do you need to read for specific information or general information about each paragraph? (General information) Is it necessary to check new words in the text? (No) Answers: Paragraph 1: Introducing Ethical Man Paragraph 2: A Year of Green Living Paragraph 3: Limited Results of Our Efforts Paragraph 4: A New Mission in America Paragraph 5: Travelling with Low Carbon Impact Paragraph 6: Asking for Ideas and Solutions Give Ss 3 minutes to compare answers in pairs in BORs. OCFB using results on Forms.

While-Reading #2 (14-16 minutes) • To provide students with more challenging detailed, deduction and inference reading tasks

Tell Ss they will now be reading individually for detailed understanding. Screenshare Google Form. Tell Ss the answers are in the paragraphs stated next to the questions, and that they need to write their answers in the form. Ask them to focus on finding the answers and ignore words they don't know that aren't relevant. But they can use a dictionary to check one or two unknown words (point out link to Longman dictionary online link in Google form). Work on your own. You have 8 minutes. ICQs: How long? For general or specific information? 1. Why did Justin decide to try living ethically for a year? Because he wanted to reduce his impact on the environment. 2. Did he and his family enjoy the experience? No. His wife had to walk to the hospital to give birth and in France, they took a “nightmarish” train journey when it was hot. 3. What kinds of things do they try to change? They started to use energy-saving bulbs, changed the way they heat and power their home, stopped flying, walked, used bicycles or took public transport, did supermarket shopping online, ate organic vegetables and they even stopped eating meat (for a month). 4. Why is Justin travelling to America? Because he is looking for solutions. 5. How does he plan to travel? He is going to fly to America, travel on public transport and drive an electric car. 6. What kinds of solutions is he looking for? He is looking for solutions to the problems of how societies can reduce their carbon emissions. BORs for 4 mins and then, OCFB

Post-Reading (8-10 minutes) • To provide with an opportunity to respond to the text and expand on what they've learned

Ask Ss if they liked what Justin did and if they would like to do the same. Ss are given a situation where they need to discuss three questions for about five minutes and imagine what they would do in that situation. Tell Ss they have a minute to take notes of their answers, not full sentences. Ask ICQs: - How long will you speak for? Do you need to take notes or full sentences now? Give them a minute to plan their answers. Imagine your boss tells you: “You must live for six months as Ethical People if you want to live £30,000.” Students should say: - What would you stop doing or change about your lifestyle? - What would be impossible to give up? - Would you feel happy to do it? Open BORs, monitor and write examples of good language or errors. Post them on a G-Slide. Ask if there were any similarities or differences. FB on their ideas. DEC

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