LESSON OVERVIEW

With this upper-intermediate lesson plan students discuss the welfare state, watch a video about taxes in Sweden, and learn some useful vocabulary. 

VIDEO & VOCABULARY

This upper-intermediate lesson plan starts with a discussion activity. Students read a short definition of the welfare state and answer some questions. Before watching the video, students get three statements from the video and try to guess what word is missing in each of them. Then, they watch the beginning of the video and check their answers. Next, students look at five pairs of sentences and decide which one in each pair might be true for Sweden. They watch the rest of the video to check their answers. After that, students match sentence halves to create six statements. The statements contain vocabulary from the video (e.g. standard of living, a safety net, a well-funded resource). Finally, students decide whether they describe their country, and if not, they say if they would like their country to be this way. 

DISCUSSION

The second part of this upper-intermediate lesson plan starts with a gap-filling activity. Students look at a list of things that could be funded by the state (e.g. unemployment allowance, university tuition fees) and need to complete gaps with missing letters. Students also need to categorise each of the things from the previous exercise. They have to decide whether they must, could or shouldn’t be paid using tax money. After the discussion, students look at the title of the lesson and try to finish the quotation. They also decide if they agree with it or not. The lesson plan ends with an optional activity in which students choose one of three topics, come up with arguments for or against, and hold a debate. In a one-on-one class, the teacher can have the discussion with the student.