LESSON OVERVIEW

The main objectives of this advanced lesson on education are to:

• discuss challenges in education and what it’s like to be a teacher;
• practise compound adjectives for discussing education;
• watch a video about the difficulties teachers face.

Students talk about teachers who influenced them and compare different teaching roles. They learn compound adjectives (e.g. top-down, one-size-fits-all, exam-heavy), discuss issues in the field of education and watch a video about teachers’ challenges. Students discuss problems in education and imagine how they would handle challenges if they were teachers.

WARM-UP AND COMPOUND ADJECTIVES

This advanced lesson on education starts with a warm-up. Students think of a teacher who has had a significant impact on their lives. They describe them briefly and explain how they influenced them. Afterwards, students look at different types of teaching professions (e.g. subject teacher, preschool teacher, university professor) and answer questions comparing their responsibilities and roles. Following that, they complete gaps with letters to create compound adjectives (e.g. top-down approach, one-size-fits-all policy, time-poor profession) in descriptions of education-related issues and approaches (e.g. Teaching is a time-poor profession). The definitions of the adjectives are provided in the task. Moving on, students look at pairs of options related to the points from the previous activity and choose the one which, in their opinion, outweighs the other. They justify their choices.

VIDEO AND DISCUSSION

In this part of this advanced lesson on education, students watch the first part of a video and list the challenges teachers have been facing that the speaker talks about. Next, they guess what the educator’s next step will be by choosing one option. Students watch the rest of the video to check their answer. Afterwards, they discuss questions about challenges in education. Next, students imagine they are a teacher. They look at a list of common reasons for burnout (e.g. administrative overload, low pay, behavioural issues in the classroom). Students choose key reasons for quitting teaching, explain their choices and discuss which challenges they would accept and how they would manage them. 

HOMEWORK/REVISION

This advanced lesson on education also includes an additional task that you can use as homework or revision. In the task, students read sentences and complete a crossword with the missing words. They then create a word using letters from the crossword. The task is available in the teacher’s version of the worksheet. You can print it and hand it out to your students. It’s also included in the e-lesson plan.