LESSON OVERVIEW

In this lesson about diet and obesity, students reflect on the factors contributing to the problem of obesity, listen to a news report and learn some words and phrases related to health.

WARM-UP & HEALTH VOCABULARY

The warm-up activity starts with four sentences presenting the statistics about obesity in the UK with missing numbers which students have to complete. Next, they look at four pictures and answer somequestions about the causes of obesity. The speaking activity leads to a vocabulary task, in which students analyse six gapped sentences. Each sentence is followed by a definition of the missing word or phrase to help students guess them. If this part is too challenging, students get extra help in the following task which provides them with a box with the missing words and phrases related to health (e.g. prescribe, well-being).

VIDEO & DEBATES

The second part of this lesson about diet and obesity starts with a news report. At first, students watch it to find out what the purpose and main suggestions of the report are. Then, they listen for detailed information and focus on five specific pieces of information from the report and their significance. The listening activities are followed by a discussion in which students comment on the issue of obesity in the UK and relate it to their own countries. As the lesson finishes with a debate, the aim of the next matching activity is to pre-teach students phrases used to present argument and debate. Students match half-phrases to create complete ones (e.g. There is also / the issue of, The data / shows that). Then, they look at a statement, work in pairs and prepare for a debate. One student prepares arguments for and the other one against the statement. They make notes, join another pair and debate the arguments using the phrases from the previous exercise. They share the conclusions with the whole class and repeat the procedure for one of the three statements given in the next task.