| LESSON OVERVIEW
This lesson focuses on a topic that’s not really talked about a lot: veterans suffering from PTSD. Don’t get scared! We don’t go deep into the reasons and consequences of it but rather show this issue by presenting how horses help soldiers re-enter society and deal with their traumas. The goal of this lesson plan is simple – introduce several new words and phrases, practise listening skills and finally use new language both in writing and speaking.
WARM-UP & VIDEO
The worksheet starts with a few discussion points about animals, the ways they help humans as well as what they can teach us. Next, students move to some photos which give them some hints about what the video’s going to be about. Before watching the video, students also need to learn some useful vocabulary. They get a few words and phrases and have to match them to their definitions. When they watch the video for the first time, they just need to get a general idea of equine therapy and answer one question. In the second task, students need to listen for specific information and answer comprehension questions.
VOCABULARY & DISCUSSION
Next, students move to a vocabulary task based on the language used in the video. They get two columns with parts of phrases and need to match them to create collocations, Then, students need to practise them by writing some sentences with them. Finally, students move to a discussion point task. We prepared a couple of statements which they need to comment on and most importantly, while they do it, they need to use the words from this lesson. You can even try using it for some sort of a bingo game – when they cross out each expression and need to use all of them before they finish their discussion.
One comment: the lesson plan post is titled ‘Horse therapy for veterans‘, however, the title in the SV and TV worksheets as well as in the e-lesson plan is different (‘How animals help humans‘) so that students can guess (in ex. 2) what the video is about.
EXTRA WORKSHEET – HORSE IDIOMS
The lesson talks about horses used in therapy so we created an extra worksheet built around the word ‘horse’ as well. It includes eight horse idioms which are introduced through various tasks. Your students will discover the meanings of new idioms, see in what context they can be used and practise them in writing.
WORKSHEETS
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I really liked your E-lesson approach, but please do not remove the pdf worksheets. I surveyed and many of my students preferred the old pdf style lessons.
Don’t worry, they are here and we don’t plan to remove any of our PDFs !
Great lesson plan! I’m excited to use it for one-on-one teaching soon 🙂
Thanks! Good luck with your class 🙂
The title of the lesson is different on the worksheets to the one on this webpage
Yes, that’s right. We did that on purpose. In ex. 2, students need to look at some photos and guess what the video is about. If we had the title ‘Horse therapy for veterans’ in the worksheet, it’d be obvious what the video is about. However, on the website, we decided that it’s important that teachers know exactly what the lesson is about.
Really interesting. I’ll use this material with a conversation group I have. Thanks.
Thanks! Have a good class and let us know how it went!
I was looking for a lesson about animals, and I was surprised that this was the only one I could find. Certainly, this is a great topic, but with animals in general (pets, wildlife) being such a popular subject for so many, I was a little disappointed to find nothing else. At least, my keyword search only yielded this one worksheet. P.S. Thanks for all the good work you do!
Hi! Thanks for letting us know that the keyword search doesn’t work well for you. We’ll look into it. We do have more lessons about animals and nature though. The best way to find them is by searching through out topics here. I’m also pasting here the links to two topics you might be interested in: animals and environment. Hope that helps 🙂
Hi Justa, Belated thanks for your reply to my query. In fact, the the keyword search worked fine. My disappointment is due to the fact that ALL of the animal related topics (apart from this one on horse therapy) are exclusively for those with Unlimited membership. I find that a little over-exclusive (especially re such a common topic of conversation), having been a longstanding holder of Premium membership! Thanks again.
Thanks for your reply! We appreciate your feedback, will keep it in mind and will do our best to balance lessons on given topics better in the future 🙂