LESSON OVERVIEW

Diversity and inclusion are buzzwords in today’s (corporate) world. We can see that there are a lot of efforts to ensure that people don’t feel excluded in global organizations and diverse societies. Diversity is all about empowering people by respecting and appreciating what makes them different.

WARM-UP – VIDEO

This time we start the lesson with a video. It’s a short animated story called Purl about fitting in at the workplace. The main character is a ball of yarn so pre-teach such words like “yarn“, “weave” and “crochet” (it will help understand the jokes in the video).  Afterwards, let your class discuss what the video was about and what kind of topics it was focused on. The second video is a short interview with the writer/director of Purl so students can confront her idea with their own.

READING AND VOCABULARY (CAE WORD FORMATION & ADJECTIVES)

Next, there is a text about diversity which is also here to practise word formation skills. It’s built just as Part 3 of the CAE Exam Reading and Use of English paper, that is students are given a ‘prompt’ word which they need to transform to fill in the gaps. After that, students move to one more vocabulary task where they learn new adjectives by grouping them into synonyms and antonyms.

DISCUSSION

We created two speaking tasks for this lesson plan. The first one is a pair discussion about diversity and inclusion. Students should find the words they learnt throughout the lesson useful for the questions they need to discuss. The second task is group debates. In the Teacher’s Version you will find two debate topics for your students (print out enough copies before the lesson!). Both of them are connected to the topic of diversity and should be controversial enough to spark nice and long debates in your classroom.

RELATED WORKSHEET

We developed an extra worksheet to this lesson plan to teach some inclusive language. In this one-page handout, students will learn what inclusive language is and discover some examples of both inclusive and exclusive language. Students need to choose expressions which are inappropriate (examples of exclusive language) in the workplace. They also have to explain their choice. After that, there is a short discussion activity on their attitudes towards inclusive language and whether their colleagues try to use it.