LESSON OVERVIEW

This surveillance lesson plan looks into the topic of employee monitoring software and questions the use of this technology raises. Students will do some word formation tasks, learn new vocabulary and have plenty of opportunities to discuss.

This is a Flipped Classroom lesson plan. In a nutshell, it means that the first part of the lesson needs to be done by students at home. Learn more about flipped classroom and how we implement it in these lesson plans in our post.

PRE-CLASS ACTIVITIES

The pre-class worksheet starts with a short text about the term surveillance. However, if you do this flipped lesson plan as a standard lesson plan, the e-lesson plan starts with a quote by Mark Zuckerberg: “Privacy is a social norm of the past”.

First, students have to read the text and think which parts of speech are missing in each gap. Next, they read it again and complete it with the correct forms of the words in brackets. Moreover, there is also other task on synonyms. In the same text, students need to find synonyms of the words given. In this whole pre-class section, students will learn the following words and phrases: illicit, illegal, to track, to monitor security, safety, protection, to reveal, to disclose, permission, agreement, consent, to keep an eye on, to spy. To practise the vocabulary, students choose 3 new words from this part of the worksheet and write sentences with them.

IN-CLASS ACTIVITIES

The in-class worksheet starts with speaking. Students have to comment and rank the different types of surveillance. They have to say whether these surveillance kinds are acceptable or too intrusive. Next, they move to one vocabulary task. They have to match words from the box to their meanings. Before watching a video, students discuss three lead-in questions. Then, they watch the video and try to explain the idea behind employee monitoring software. After that, they watch the video again and answer some comprehension questions. This surveillance lesson plan finishes with a short discussion as well as a debate about using employee monitoring software. Students prepare arguments against and in favour of the statement given and think about it both from the employer’s and the employee’s perspective.