How green are you?

In this lesson learners will practise speaking by carrying out two group surveys about being green. They will also summarise their findings as a report and practise using present perfect. This lesson looks at everyday actions learners can take to reduce their impact on climate change. From reading their peers’ reports, learners will be able to decide what actions their class have to take in future.

Other lesson plans for A2 level learners on the topic of being environmentally friendly can be found here: https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/teaching-resources/teaching-secondary/lesson-plans/pre-intermediate-a2/save-water and here https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/teaching-resources/teaching-secondary/lesson-plans/pre-intermediate-a2/fast-fashion

Lesson outcomes

All learners will:

• practise speaking through doing group surveys
• practise writing skills by writing a summary of findings
• practise using the present perfect to talk about recent actions
• show understanding of actions that can reduce impact on climate change

Materials

• Lesson plan 
• Student worksheets A, B and C
• Presentation 

Lead-in (5 minutes)

• This activity introduces leaners to the topic of being green. This is also an opportunity for you to a) elicit/unblock any vocabulary from the surveys in the student worksheets that you think your students might need.
• Ask the class to raise their hand if they think they do enough for the environment. Divide learners into groups of 4-5. Show slide 2 or ask them to write down what do to ‘be green’. Set a time limit of 3 minutes.
• Nominate a group spokesperson to read out the groups’ ideas. Help with language when needed. Note any interesting vocabulary on the board.

Group survey (10 minutes)

• This activity practices talking about recent experiences using present perfect.
•  Important note: Before giving out the student worksheets, divide the class into As, Bs, and Cs. There are three versions of the student worksheet because task 4 is different for students A, B and C.
• Show slide 3 or give out student worksheets A, B and C, and look at task 1. If you think your class needs help understanding some irregular past participles (e.g., bought, eaten), ask them to underline all the verbs in the sentences, and elicit the base form of the verb. 
• Learners answer for themselves in the ‘me’ column, e.g., writing public transport/car for question 1. Learners can help each other with the meaning of the questions. 
• Tell learners they will now do a group survey. Model and drill (you say, they repeat) the first two questions and possible answers –e.g., I’ve used the car more/I haven’t bought any food from a local shop so that learners feel confident speaking.
• Model how to do the survey by using one learner as your survey respondent. Be sure to model good surveying - ask some follow questions when relevant, and note down answers.
• Put learners to move into groups of six. Learners do the survey in their group, taking turns asking questions (1 each plus one extra question). They each need to take notes of the answers.
• Show slide 4 or tell learners to look at question c. Learners need to count up the results, e.g., how many said public transport, how many said car for question 1, and make a note of these on the worksheet.
• Nominate a group spokesperson to say how green the group is, based on the results. Decide as a class which group is greenest.

Language to write a report (10 minutes)

• This activity provides learners with language to summarise results, to use in their survey report.
• Show slide 5 of ask learners to look at exercise 2. Read the exercise and ask learners why say 'All of the people' instead of 'Six people'. Possible answer: Although it’s correct to say a number, it’s more common in reports to use summarizing phrases like these, it adds variation. When numbers are larger, it’s more useful for someone to say ‘half of the people’ than 47 people out of 94 people.
• Learners complete the gaps individually, before comparing with a partner. Click to show the answers on slide 6 or read them out. (Answers: one, only, some, half, most, everyone)
• For extra practice, draw a cline (0%------100%) on the board and use it to test understanding of the phrases. Use class characteristics, e.g., hair colour, age, boy/girl. Point to an area and ask them to make a phrase. E.g., When you point to the middle, learners say 'Half the people in the class have brown hair'.

Write a survey report (15 minutes)

• This is the main writing activity – writing a report about how green the class is.

• Show slide 7 or direct learners to exercise 3 on the student worksheet. To help learners understand how to use the writing frame, read out the report aloud, inserting invented answers and/or pausing for some learners to say their answers. When doing this, check learners know when to use ‘and’, or ‘but’, depending if the information is contrasting or not.
• Check that learners know to use ‘has’ for indefinite pronouns no one and everybody – these are treated like singular nouns. Check that learners know the meaning of fortunately and unfortunately (like luckily/ unluckily).
• Learners should read and complete the model report in pairs/individually, using their own results to select the most suitable phrases to fill the blanks. 
• When finished, ask learners to swap reports and read someone else’s report.
• Collect in the reports, give feedback and deal with any common errors.

Whole class survey (15 minutes)

• In this stage there will be three different surveys being carried out throughout the class. You could adapt the questions to suit your local context and students’ interests.
• There are three surveys to give the learners a variety of questions. Ask learners to check if they have the student A, B or C worksheet. For you to know, ask learners to raise their hand if they are going to do a survey about being green at home (student A raises hand), about travelling (student B raises hand), or about water (student C raises hand). 
• Learners need to first complete their questions by choosing the right form of the verb. Allow those of A, B, C to check answers together, or show slides 8-10.
• Explain that this is a whole class survey, learners should mingle and interview as many others as possible (interviewing another class or staff could also be interesting here). If there isn’t room to move in your classroom, suggest that learners ask those around them.
• Learners count up their results. Put learners in pairs of groups and ask them to use the report frame in exercise 2 (or go back to slide 7) to tell a partner about their results.
• Optional: Learners write a report, similar to the earlier model, for homework.

Reflect (5 minutes)

• Show slide 12 or write up the following questions on the board: What activity did you enjoy today? What did you improve most today – your speaking, writing, or grammar and vocabulary? 
• Ask learners to first think then share their reflections with a partner.

Follow up

• Show slide 13 or explain that learners will work in groups to think of everything they found out from their classmates today. They make notes of the main things the class does that are good for the environment and the things that they are not doing but that they should. 
• As a whole class, try to agree on five things they will change for the better in future and make a class declaration for the wall.