As a Middle School and High School English Language teacher, you can use a talk about climate change and an associated comprehension quiz to help you teach listening comprehension. This lesson plan uses the TED talk, “The disarming case to act right now on climate change” by Climate Activist, Greta Thunberg, for listening comprehension followed by answering inferential questions, detecting emotive undertones as well as answering narrow focus questions about the vocabulary used. This lesson plan also includes an exercise of writing a response to the speaker via an informal letter, thereby allowing the students to articulate their own thoughts and opinions on the matter of climate change activism and to combine those with the information they have gathered.
Thus, the use of this lesson plan allows you to integrate the teaching of a climate science topic with a core topic in English Language, English for Academic Purposes (EAP) or Functional English.
The tools in this lesson plan will enable students to:
Teacher-contributed lesson plan by Dr. Pooja Sancheti, Visiting Faculty, IISER Pune, India.
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| Grade Level | Middle School, High School |
| Discipline | Humanities |
| Topic(s) in Discipline | English, Literature, Communication, Language, Listening Comprehension, Inferential Questions, Emotive Undertones, Vocabulary, Creative Writing, Letter Writing |
| Climate Topic | Introduction to Climate Change, Climate Literacy |
| Location | Global |
| Language(s) | English, Transcript available in 34 languages |
| Access | Online / Offline |
| Approximate Time Required | 45-60 min |
| Share | |
| Resource Download |
Here is a step-by-step guide to using this lesson plan in the classroom/laboratory. We have suggested these steps as a possible plan of action. You may customize the lesson plan according to your preferences and requirements.
Reading (10 min)
Begin with an open discussion in your class based on the following questions:
Use a news report, ‘Greta Thunberg: 16-year-old climate activist inspired international youth movement’ by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), to introduce them to Greta Thunberg, the speaker of the recorded TED talk, which is the primary text. Thunberg is one of the most well-known faces in climate activism and is herself of school going age. Discuss her primary achievements, her personal struggles, and her arguments for activism among young adults.
Video (~11 min)
Play the video of Greta Thunberg’s TEDxStockholm talk titled, ‘The disarming case to act right now on climate change’. Allow them to listen to it in its entirety. The recording is about 11 minutes long. Encourage them to listen carefully and try to gather their overall impressions of the speech and speaker, as well as to note down or retain important pieces of information.
Then give them a questionnaire (the questionnaire can be found at the end of this lesson plan as separate printable pages), which is based on the video, in print form, to answer on their own as per the instructions for each question.
Play the video recording once again so that they can correct their answers. You may spend some time discussing their responses.
Answer Key:
Optional Homework Assignment (25 min)
Use the link, ‘How to Write informal Letters in English (With Examples)’ by Owlcation.com, to introduce your students to the basic rules of letter writing (salutations, sign off, and structure). Instruct the students to use this format to write a letter (homework assignment) to Greta Thunberg as a response to her talk.
To complete this assignment, ask the students to think about climate change and how individuals can change the situation. Direct your students to use their impressions of Thunberg’s speech, coupled with their own ideas about climate change activism and their view of themselves as activists to form the bulk of a letter that they will address to Greta Thunberg. Instruct the students to include the following points in their letters:
Thus, this letter writing exercise enables two crucial skills to be tested and reinforced: one, the ability to glean and summarize information from an external source, and two: the ability to articulate one’s thoughts and opinions on an important issue and connect that to the information obtained.
Use the tools and the concepts learned so far to discuss and determine answers to the following questions:
Use this lesson plan to help your students find answers to:
| 1 | Reading; ‘Greta Thunberg: New beetle named after climate activist’ | A news report by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).
This can be accessed here. |
| 2 | Reading; ‘What is the Paris Agreement?’ | By the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
This can be accessed here |
| 3 | Reading; ‘About the IPCC’ | A description of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
This can be accessed here. |
| 4 | Reading; ‘The Story of 16 Year Old Climate Activist Greta Thunberg’ | A blog by Tabitha Whiting in Medium.com.
This can be accessed here. |
| 1 | Reading; ‘Greta Thunberg: 16-year-old climate activist inspired international youth movement’ | A news report by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). |
| 2 | Video; ‘The disarming case to act right now on climate change’ | A video recording of Greta Thunberg’s TEDxStockholm talk, featured by TED.com. |
| 3 | Reading; ‘How to Write Informal Letters in English (With Examples)’ | Published by Owlcation.com. |
| 4 | Additional Resources |
| Grade Level | Middle School, High School |
| Discipline | English Language, English for Academic Purposes (EAP) or Functional English |
| Topic(s) in Discipline | Listening Comprehension, Inferential Questions, Emotive Undertones, Vocabulary, Creative Writing, Letter Writing |
| Climate Topic | Introduction to Climate Change |
| Location | Global |
| Language(s) | English, Transcript available in 34 languages |
| Access | Online / Offline |
| Approximate Time Required | 45-60 min |
| Share | |
| Resource Download |
Here is a step-by-step guide to using this lesson plan in the classroom/laboratory. We have suggested these steps as a possible plan of action. You may customize the lesson plan according to your preferences and requirements.
Reading (10 min)
Begin with an open discussion in your class based on the following questions:
Use a news report, ‘Greta Thunberg: 16-year-old climate activist inspired international youth movement’ by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), to introduce them to Greta Thunberg, the speaker of the recorded TED talk, which is the primary text. Thunberg is one of the most well-known faces in climate activism and is herself of school going age. Discuss her primary achievements, her personal struggles, and her arguments for activism among young adults.
Video (~11 min)
Play the video of Greta Thunberg’s TEDxStockholm talk titled, ‘The disarming case to act right now on climate change’. Allow them to listen to it in its entirety. The recording is about 11 minutes long. Encourage them to listen carefully and try to gather their overall impressions of the speech and speaker, as well as to note down or retain important pieces of information.
Then give them a questionnaire (the questionnaire can be found at the end of this lesson plan as separate printable pages), which is based on the video, in print form, to answer on their own as per the instructions for each question.
Play the video recording once again so that they can correct their answers. You may spend some time discussing their responses.
Answer Key:
Optional Homework Assignment (25 min)
Use the link, ‘How to Write informal Letters in English (With Examples)’ by Owlcation.com, to introduce your students to the basic rules of letter writing (salutations, sign off, and structure). Instruct the students to use this format to write a letter (homework assignment) to Greta Thunberg as a response to her talk.
To complete this assignment, ask the students to think about climate change and how individuals can change the situation. Direct your students to use their impressions of Thunberg’s speech, coupled with their own ideas about climate change activism and their view of themselves as activists to form the bulk of a letter that they will address to Greta Thunberg. Instruct the students to include the following points in their letters:
Thus, this letter writing exercise enables two crucial skills to be tested and reinforced: one, the ability to glean and summarize information from an external source, and two: the ability to articulate one’s thoughts and opinions on an important issue and connect that to the information obtained.
Use the tools and the concepts learned so far to discuss and determine answers to the following questions:
Use this lesson plan to help your students find answers to:
| 1 | Reading; ‘Greta Thunberg: New beetle named after climate activist’ | A news report by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).
This can be accessed here. |
| 2 | Reading; ‘What is the Paris Agreement?’ | By the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
This can be accessed here |
| 3 | Reading; ‘About the IPCC’ | A description of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
This can be accessed here. |
| 4 | Reading; ‘The Story of 16 Year Old Climate Activist Greta Thunberg’ | A blog by Tabitha Whiting in Medium.com.
This can be accessed here. |
| 1 | Reading; ‘Greta Thunberg: 16-year-old climate activist inspired international youth movement’ | A news report by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). |
| 2 | Video; ‘The disarming case to act right now on climate change’ | A video recording of Greta Thunberg’s TEDxStockholm talk, featured by TED.com. |
| 3 | Reading; ‘How to Write Informal Letters in English (With Examples)’ | Published by Owlcation.com. |
| 4 | Additional Resources | BBC UNFCC IPCC Medium.com |
