Notre Dame in Flames - Lesson for B2+


This lesson is based on a YouTube video published by Russell Brand on his own YouTube channel. He is simply giving his thoughts on the Notre Dame disaster and how this reflects the 'fragility of the [current] situation' and human nature in general. 

The aims of the lesson are:

  1. to help learners practise their listening for specific information by answering comprehension questions and T/F statements. 
  2. to offer learners the opportunity to practise their speaking skills by expressing their own views on the Notre Dame disaster, by participating in a debate, etc.
  3. to introduce topic-related lexis, e.g. symbolic, narrative, confront, discomforted, etc.
  4. to raise learners' awareness of what constitutes a symbol of culture and the different factors that affect this decision. 

Level: B2+
Length: two 45-minute lessons (more or less 😊)
Materials:
  1. learner handout
  2. cards with words
  3. cards with definitions
  4. Transcript 
  5. Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lrd9Q8COF5Y&t=1s 


Learner handout







Cards with words 1-9






Cards with definitions a-j






Trascript






Hope you like it! 
Please, let me know in the comments what your students thought if you decide to use the materials!
😊





8 comments:

  1. I just loved the materials! I'll let you know what my students thought when I use them...

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  2. Just saw the material and thought to prepare it in order to use it after Easter holidays. Remarkable work!!! Thank you for sharing....

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    Replies
    1. Thanks you, you're very kind! Let me know if your students liked it!

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  3. Hi Alexander, and thank you for sharing this set of materials, which my B2 group absolutely loved. To cater to the needs of this particular group of chiefly Spanish learners, I had to choose different B2-C1 words from the transcript, as the Latin root of a few of the words in the original task would compromise the level of difficulty. Also, albeit grudgingly, I replaced Shakespeare with Cervantes in the debate task, as my lot unfortunately knows little about the former (note to self), and I thought the debate would be more heated if it entailed someone from their own culture.
    I did the matching activity as follows: students had to work in pairs and use the list of words and the transcript to write definitions for the words based on the context. After peer check, I did a running dictation task with the dictionary definitions stuck on the walls outside. (Student a = runner, student b = writer). Then we compared with their own definitions and proceeded with the debate. Everyone enjoyed the lesson. Thanks again.
    Deni

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    Replies
    1. Hi Deni,
      Thank you for the comment and I'm really glad the learners liked it! I'm also glad that you adapted it in such an effective way!

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