LESSON OVERVIEW

The lesson plan is based on a TED-Ed video titled “How to spot a misleading graph” by Lea Gaslowitz. The aim of the lesson is to teach students vocabulary and structures they can use while describing graphs in English. In addition, thanks to the video, students will learn how to spot inconsistent data and distorted charts.

VOCABULARY

The worksheet starts with exercises on vocabulary. Firstly, students need to complete the table with verbs for going up and down. Secondly, there is an exercise on structures that we should use when describing graphs in English and prepositions that go with verbs and nouns. The third and fourth exercises are practical ones. First, students have to write a description of a line graph given. Next, they work in pairs – one person describes a graph and the other should draw that graph, then they change roles. Graphs to that task are available at the end of the Teacher’s Version pdf.

VIDEO AND DISCUSSION

Then, students watch the video and complete sentences with words they hear in it. In the following task, they have to match these words with their synonyms. The last activity consists questions about issues from the video. You can give your students time to collect ideas to answer the questions and then do an open discussion.

EXTRA TASK

Moreover, there is an extra task at the end of the Teacher’s Version. Give misleading graphs to your students and ask them to analyse them and tell what is wrong with them and how data is misrepresented there.