| LESSON OVERVIEW
Here is another English lesson plan brought to you thanks to TED Talks and this time their TED Ed programme (explore it as it is perfect authentic material for ESL teachers). This time the lesson focuses on debating skills and vocabulary for expressing opinions. The worksheet is based on a video called “Ethical dilemma of driverless cars” by Patrick Lin and gravitates around moral dilemmas.
WARM-UP
Instead of a usual oral lead-in, the first exercise checks students knowledge on phrases for expressing opinions as they need to fill in a mind map that starts with the ubiquitous “I think that”. Students get the first letters of the words. They have to come up with specific phrases, however, there are some open gaps where they can put other phrases they know. What follows is a short speaking task during which students need to use vocabulary from exercise 1 while they are forbidden to use the word “think”. It may seem easy at start but the phrase “I think…” is so common that even when students monitor themselves they often use it subconsciously when they really get into the discussion. I usually start this task by asking them to choose 3-4 phrases they like the most from exercise 1 and stick to them. I don’t believe it is realistic to expect that they will use 10 new phrases just like that. But if they learn to mix it up and instead of choosing “I think..” all the time throw in 2-3 other expressions, it’s a win!
VOCABULARY
Exercise 3 looks into a few common idioms related to decision-making. In this task, students need to match the idiomatic expressions with their definitions. You can also ask them whether there are similar equivalents in their native language – this can help them remember these phrases better. Note: watch out for idioms that are similar in students’ L1 but not quite the same. Exercise 4 is yet another speaking opportunity to reinforce new vocabulary and use it in practice.
INTERACTIVE VIDEO
Finally, we get to the video itself. It is important to elicit from your students what a driverless car is (and its different names). This video below contains not only the original TED Ed clip but also some discussion questions and one multiple choice task. It was created through islcollective.com. If you go there by clicking here, you will also find a vocabulary list from the video which you might use as well as all the discussion questions in a printable format if you don’t like such ed-tech applications.
The last task includes some other dilemmas. If you need more of them or look for something more suitable for you class , you can browse through some ideas on this page. Watch out, some of them are pretty gruesome!! Nevertheless, this last exercise gives students a chance to look at other ethical dilemmas not related to new technologies or cars.
WORKSHEETS
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thanks. great lesson
Cool! I’m happy you enjoyed that 🙂
a fantastic lesson. Very thought-provoking and i sparked plenty of debate in my classroom. Thank you!
It’s great to hear that! Thanks for the positive feedback
you guys are just amazing! i use all of the discussions presented here in my daily classroom ! very happy for having theses ideas w/ me
Thanks Paulo! It’s really inspiring to hear that teachers like our work and conisder it useful.
I use these with some of the most advanced companies on earth, here in Russia.
Thanks so much
Wow, that’s so cool 🙂 what companies you’re talking about – too often we only hear about things happening in the Silicon Valley
This was a fantastic lesson! Very engaging and thoughtful. Thank you very much for sharing it!
Thank you very much for sharing a really fantastic video with a thought-provoking message. Very good lesson!
I’m glad you enjoyed that! Cheers!
Used this is several lessons very successfully- many thanks!
Thank you 🙂
What a wonderful time saver! Great topic!
Great to hear it! Thanks!
Thanks so much for the effort you’ve put into these fantastic lesson plans. I have trouble finding teacher-created material online for my classes that meets my standards, both visually and content-wise. These, however, are exactly the kinds of lesson plans I would create myself, so you’ve made my job so much easier! I can’t thank you enough!
Happy to hear that Jannah! Thanks for that comment – you probably don’t realize how important for us is to get such feedback. It just validates what we do here and it’s nice to hear that there are other teachers out there who see that there is a need for such a content.
I haven’t used the material yet, but I think I agree with Jannah Hotchkiss above – good quality, well-constructed material. I shall be back!
Thanks Chris! Use, share and give us feedback 🙂
Thank you, but what happened to the English subtitles in the video? Please get them back!
Well, it works fine for me. maybe you unchecked the CC button?
I love the lessons on ESLbrains! Thank you sooo much
You’re welcome! Share and spread the word 🙂
These are the best lesson plans ever, do keep up =)
An excellent lesson, thought provoking and stimulating, On my list of favourites 😀
I have already posted a comment down below… a great lesson! NOW I want to add that I found a ‘Trolley’ lesson on TED Ed… I have added this and it ties the whole ethical dilemma together. Excellent for really advanced students. It can be found at: https://ed.ted.com/lessons/would-you-sacrifice-one-person-to-save-five-eleanor-nelsen
Amazing lesson, I always have great results with my students. Thank you very much, Stan!
Love this lesson. Students always have fun trying not to say think in the second part.
It’s great to hear that 🙂 Thanks for leaving the comment!
Facebook already has a dislike button so the sentence is redundant.
Really? I haven’t seen that anywhere. You have the emotions as a reaction now but I haven’t seen a ‘dislike’ among them.
The link to the video is broken
Flo, it works fine now. There was a temporary service outage at the place where this interactive video is hosted but they fixed that quite fast.
Ok great thanks!
Amazing lesson! My students loved it. Great vocabulary and a thought-provoking video. (fyi the link to the blog with extra dilemmas is broken)
Keep up the great work!
Thanks a lot! Happy to hear you enjoyed it. I’ve replaced the link with another source of moral dilemmas, so if you need more or want to look at 1-2 cases as a revision, click the link and choose the one you find most intriguing.
Super lesson, I use this a lot in group classes and one-to-ones, everyone enjoys it
Awesome to hear that! Even though it’s an old(er) lesson, I feel it’s still relevant.