Global Goals - ESL Lesson 2: End Poverty

Teachers, please refer to these notes: Teacher notes (2)

End poverty in all its forms everywhere.  

Lesson type: 

Grammar and Vocabulary

* SubsidiaryReceptive skills: Reading / Listening

Productive skills (sub skills): Speaking

Lesson aims: 

Clarify and use in context: Present Simple Tense and related vocabulary

To continue to look at the first United Nations Global Goal: End Poverty in all its forms everywhere  and to look at one specific country's suffering and poverty: South Sudan.

Level:

Level: A2 - B1.   The content of the lesson is adaptable for all levels from beginners to advanced.  For lower or higher levels the template and procedure remains the same but the content would be changed.  Also, I have simplified the lesson a little by not including more than one exercise during the production part of the lesson (second half of the lesson).

Abbreviations used in this lesson:  
1.  ss (students). 
2.  TL (target language)

Resources: 

What are Global Development Goals?

How to teach the UN's Development Goals and why

Sustainable Development Goals - 17 Goals to Transform Our World - 

Goal 1: End poverty in all its forms everywhere

Raymond Van Neste's blog: Learn English by Thinking Globally

Task 1 - Warm-up

The warmer chosen for lesson 2, needs no preparation and is entirely student centred.  It puts the ss into a situation where they need to work together, show creativity, imagination, inquisitiveness, persistence and possibly understanding.  These are all good qualities which will help later on in these lessons when the ss look in detail at particularly difficult subject material such as: life and death situations, victims of war, people starving, people suffering, severe poverty.


The full sequence for the warmer is in: Teacher notes (2)

Task 2

Put a picture on the board (or give out handouts of the picture) about poverty in South Sudan and the terrible situation of life and death in this country.

With the person next to you discuss: What is the main theme in the picture?

Length of time to carry out this task: 2 minutes

Student feedback: Students and teacher discuss what they think the picture is about.  The ss and teacher begin to look at the context of the lesson.  

Length of time: 3 minutes

Task 3 - Reading for gist

Tell the ss that in a moment you want them to read a text which is taken from a news report (article) about South Sudan (handouts).  Hold up the page that you want the ss to read so that all of the ss can see it and tell them that you would like them to read it while thinking about one question: 

Why is there such terrible suffering in South Sudan?  

Tell the ss that in the text are highlighted words.   Ask the students to just simply look at these and to try to guess their meaning from the context of the whole text?  Give the page of text to each ss. 

The ss have three minutes to read the text and to think about the answer to the question.

Text (with highlighted vocabulary):

'The circumstance in South Sudan is dire; 5 million people don’t know how they’ll find their next meal, and of them, 100,000 are starving and facing death. The WFP is intervening, dropping 33 tons of food at a time from commercial cargo planes.

Each plane load can feed 1,600 people for 30 days, but in the town of Mayom, where the 60 Minutes crew filmed, 50,000 people are in need. It will take 26 more air drops. The WFP estimates they are only feeding about half of those in need each month.

“[The WFP] told us, ‘It’s in South Sudan. We’re fighting famine,’” Kerbstat says. “It’s taking people from the brink of death.”

The people at death’s door are often children. The International Medical Corps has established a clinic in the country’s capital to treat malnourished kids.

“They are bringing children back from a very dangerous place of malnourishment, where their immune systems are so weak that even a common cold could unfortunately kill them,” Kerbstat says. Solid food can be equally deadly. Instead, the clinic has therapeutic milk specially formulated to their needs.'

Article: Reporting from South Sudan, by: Brit McCandless.  CBS News. 17 March 2017.

The full text / article can be seen at: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/reporting-on-famine-south-sudan/

'Men carry packages of food that have been air dropped by the World Food Programme'  CBS News photo

'South Sudanese people line-up to await a food drop'  CBS News photo

Task 4

Ss are now asked to talk with their partner about what they think is the answer to the question and also the meaning of the highlighted words / text in the article.  

4 minutes allowed for this task.  

Student feedback: Students and teacher discuss what they think is the answer to the question as well as discussing the meanings of the highlighted words in the context of the article and situation in South Sudan.  Here, the teacher will elicit each word (highlighted text) so that the ss can learn the vocabulary in the context of the article (meaning).  Each word is drilled by the teacher several times for the ss.  

Looking at vocabulary and expressions is an important part of these lessons so that the ss can get some idea of the language used in news articles about different parts of the world where there are dramatic circumstances (in this case famine, death, war and terrible suffering). 

Length of time for the feedback:  8 minutes

Vocabulary:

Dire     Intervening     Famine     Death's door      Malnourished

Dire: adjective

Meaning:  This word is used to emphasize how serious a situation or event is

Inter'ven'ing: verb

Meaning:   To 'intervene' is to separate two points in time or two events

Fam'ine: noun

Meaning:  A serious shortage of food in a country, which may cause many deaths

Death's door: informal phrase

Meaning: If you say that someone is at death's door you mean they are very ill indeed

Mal'nour'ished: adjective

Meaning: to be physically weak because of not having enough food to eat or not enough of the right kind of food.

Task 5 - Detailed reading

Ask the ss to read the text again but this time in more detail.  Ask them to answer six questions while reading.  The ss go into groups of three and discuss the answers while they are reading the text.  

8 minutes allowed for this task

Questions: 

1.  Are all of the people in South Sudan suffering?

2.  Why are they suffering?

3.  What work is the World Food Programme (WFP) doing to help the people in this terrible situation?

4.  Do you think the WFP are doing a good job?

5.  Are many people dying?

6.  Are the children malnourished?

Student feedback:   Length of time for the feedback: 5 minutes

Task 6 - Elicit the TL

The teacher will put on to the board four sentences taken from the earlier article / text.

Ss are now asked to look at the first two sentences from four sentences on the board.  The teacher elicits from the ss the target language (present simple verb) from the first two sentences.

2 minutes for this task

The sentences have a missing verb (present simple) to be elicited from the ss:
1.  5 million people don't ........... how they'll find their next meal              (answer: know)

2.  each plane load can .............1,600 people for 30 days                     (answer: feed)

3.  50,000 people are in ..............                                                            (answer: need)

4.  their immune systems are so weak that even a common cold could unfortunately ..............them.                                                                              (answer: kill)

Task 7

Ask the ss to look for the four sentences from the article / text.  Give the ss a few minutes to look for the sentences. 2 minutes allowed

Task 8

The teacher will put on the board the four sentences one by one and elicit each one with the ss. The teacher will give the correct pronunciations for each word or sentence with a drill.

5 minutes allowed

CELTA procedure / information for eliciting target language.  See: Teacher notes (2)

The Target Language?  A brief summary:

In a lesson the TL is elicited from the ss.  This will take the form of a word or expression or sentence (for example a verb or noun, adjective). The ss are able to see the TL written on the board and can then start to relate more to it, pronounce it and create more similar sentences.  During the second half of a lesson, exercises are created where the ss practice the TL by using one of the four skills: Reading, Writing, Speaking, Listening. 

Task 9 - Grammar rules

Put the grammar rules / explanations (present simple tense) on to the board.  Go through the rules with the class.    See Teacher notes (2) for Grammar Rules

4 minutes allowed  

Task 10 - Practice 

This involves: controlled practice and semi-controlled practice  See: Procedure, in Teacher notes (2).  In this lesson, this stage is being skipped (for reasons of length and time).  Ss can instead go straight to task 11.

Task 11 - Final Task: Production (sub skill: speaking)

Ask the ss to work with a partner and to discuss while using the TL  (Present simple verb).  Ask the ss to use the verb at least twice during their conversation.   The discussion will be about poverty (globally).  

 
To assist the ss, the teacher will provide handouts (and also on the board) a list of verbs (present simple) for the ss to refer to while they are having the discussion.  

5 minutes

-   End of lesson  -

Well done!  You have completed lesson 2

Next lesson:

The next lesson, lesson 3, will continue to look at the same life and death situation in South Sudan but this time we will look at a grammar point using the Past Simple verb to continue to analyse closely what is happening in this country.