Families of the Future

What is a family? Family is a moving target. Our ideas about what constitutes a “normal” family have changed a lot since the 1960s, and there’s no reason to believe they’ll stop changing. No rigid definition exists for the “family”. It’s a fluid concept, one that means different things to different people and at different times. Our sense of the family as a concept has changed over time, and it will continue to do so well into the future.

Families in the future? How do you think families will change in the future?

Activity instructions Around the classroom, there are EIGHT information stations. In groups of 3, visit each station and do the following: Read the information available and discuss it with your group to understand it well. In your own words, write a summary of the information on the sheet provided. (Remember, a summary captures the main idea of a text) When you have visited all the stations, discuss the credibility of each piece of information with your group. Do you think this is the future of families in Colombia? Write a few sentences to summarise your opinion. Finally, check your construction of the future tense by reviewing the grammar explanation on pages 32 and 36 of the book.

A READING STRATEGY Having a strategy for reading helps you read faster and understand better. In this activity, you should employ the following reading strategy: Read the text quickly – read the title, read the text once quickly, try to understand new vocabulary from the surrounding context (no dictionary or translation) and understand the main idea. Confirm your understanding with your partners through a quick discussion. Write a collective summary (main idea) of the text. Move on to the next text…