Ethics of lying

Ewa | May 17, 2023Mar 20, 2024

LESSON OVERVIEW

In this speaking lesson about lying, students watch a video, talk about the ethics of lying and discuss whether they would lie in some difficult situations.

WARM-UP & VIDEO

This lesson about lying starts with a warm-up activity. Students need to find a word or phrase in each set which does not go with the word ‘lie’. The task allows them to test their knowledge of collocations with the word ‘lie’ (e.g. blatant lie, lie convincingly, swallow a lie). Then, students look at some situations and decide whether lying is justified. The situations are, for example, in a job interview, when haggling, when receiving a gift. Then, students watch the first part of the video which describes a conundrum a person is faced with. They need to say what they would do in the situation. Next, they watch the second part of the video and explain why lying in the situation described might be morally wrong. The teacher might also ask students whether watching the video has changed their mind about what they would do. 

SPEAKING

In this part of this lesson about lying, students do four speaking tasks. First, they pick one of the approaches to lying mentioned in the video. They need to convince their partner that their approach is the most sensible. After that, students look at five situations and consider possible actions that would address the problems described. They also need to say which of the actions they would take. In the third task, students choose two sayings from a list and think of real-life situations in which they would be true. Finally, the teacher can use an extra task idea. Students think about a film or a TV show and present some moral dilemmas the characters faced. Then, they discuss whether the character’s decision was morally right or wrong and/or justifiable. 

WORKSHEETS

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