| LESSON OVERVIEW
This C1 lesson plan is based on a video by Vox titled “What happens when nature goes viral?”. It deals with the issue of geotagging, i.e. the use of a piece of electronic data that shows where someone or something is and that can, for example, be attached to a photograph or comment on social media. The topic is very up-to-date and students easily relate to it.
VOCABULARY AND PICTURES
First of all, the lesson starts with an activity on adjectives. There is a short table with headings: beautiful, unchanged, remote, destroyed, busy and quiet. Students need to complete it with other listed adjectives that are synonyms or are closely related to these headings. The given adjectives are suitable for a C1 lesson plan. Then, to put it into practice, students are provided with four pictures of different landscapes (including the Horseshoe Bend in Arizona, US, which the video is about). Their task is to describe photos and tell which of them they’d like to visit and why.
VIDEO AND DISCUSSION
Next, students move to a short discussion which is an introduction to the video tasks. After that, students watch the first part of the video (up to 3:20) and answer comprehension questions. Then, they have to watch the second part of the video (from 3:20). This time, there is a gap-filling exercise. Therefore, students need to complete sentences from the video with words they hear. Finally, after watching the video, there is a speaking task. However, now students need to agree or disagree with real comments which were given to the video.
There is an extra task in the Teacher’s Version as well. In the video, they mentioned an organization that protects the outdoors by popularizing guidelines on how to behave around nature. Students need to come up with 7 rules that people should follow when in the outdoors. Do this task with your students if you want them to talk more about the human impact on nature, however, if they’ve mentioned that when discussing the comments, then you can just skip it.
This is a C1 lesson plan as it includes some advanced vocabulary and the video is quite demanding too.
WORKSHEETS
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I just worked through this lesson with a group of students last night. It was a very successful one. I combined it with some other activities like reading facts and figures of the effects of Geotagging. As a warmer, we went through the @insta_repeat account, where we saw how many people have taken the same photo over and over. The students were very interested and really thought hard about how they can change and educate the people around them regarding the topic.
Thanks so much for this lesson!
We’re really happy that your students enjoyed it! Thanks for feedback and great ideas how to supplement the lesson. We’ll definitely try your warmer with @insta_repeat account as it sounds great to start the lesson with it!
Thank you Mariana for sharing. I love your ideas on how to expand the lesson further.
good lesson, useful vocab and interesting content but much shorter than 60 minutes
Hi Andrew! Thanks for you comment, I’m happy you find this lesson useful 🙂 Re the time, I think it all depends on the size and kind of group you teach as well as how much your students are engaged and eager to talk. In the comment above, you’ll find a warm-up idea, so check it out as it might help you supplement the lesson.