1. New Internationalist Easier English Intermediate Ready Lesson
Protests
New Internationalist Easier English
Intermediate Ready Lesson
This lesson should take 2 to 3 hours

2. Vocabulary Speaking Reading Grammar Writing Homework / extension
Lesson plan:
Vocabulary Speaking Reading Grammar Writing Homework / extension
Timings: lead-in/vocabulary: mins; speaking: mins; reading: mins; grammar focus and practice: mins; writing: 30 – 60 mins

3. First, we need words – in groups, list as many words/phrases as possible for:
a) How people can protest eg. hunger strike
b) How other people can respond to protests eg. force-feeding
If learners don’t know words, feed in: a) demonstration, strike, boycott, march etc
b) support, join in, disperse crowds, water canon, rubber bullets, sack, arrest, imprison etc

4. Protests in the last year: where/why?
Learners can point out countries where they heard about protests and discuss why people were protesting.

5. Read/think: who? how? why?
Turkey:
Brazil:
Egypt:
Indonesia:
UK:
Different learners can read selected articles in pairs and discuss, or all learners can skim-read all 6 articles, then discuss: who? how? why? for each

6. Now think about other options:
If they hadn’t protested, no-one would have known. If they hadn’t gone to the streets, nothing would have changed. If they hadn’t done anything, the government would have continued. What’s the grammar?
Guide learners to discuss the form/structure (and the meaning/function and phonology).

7. If they hadn’t protested
3rd conditional:
If + past perfect (had/n’t + past participle)
If they hadn’t protested
+ past conditional (would/n’t have + past participle)
no-one would have known.
Is this past, present or future? Past
Did they protest? Yes
Did other people know because of the protests? Yes
Check learners understand the meaning/function, form/structure and phonology (utterance stress – usually on past participles; contractions; pronunciation of “ed” ending of regular past participles etc).

8. Now discuss all the protests and make more 3rd conditional sentences about what happened or what didn’t happen:
Turkey: Brazil: Greece: Indonesia: UK: Other protests you know about:
Learners can write their 3rd conditional sentences on the board or on flip-chart paper, and then correct any errors in each other’s work.

9. “Protests around the world”
Writing
In small groups, write an article for a college / school newspaper:
“Protests around the world”
Write about:
different types of protest
give examples from the articles you read
include at least 2 3rd conditionals
Articles can be blu-tacked to the wall afterwards for all learners to read and decide: which would be most interesting for people to read?
Groups can then correct any errors in the articles.

10. Homework: read the Easier English texts again – then click on the original at the end of each article and read that: compare vocabulary and grammar:
Turkey:
Brazil:
Egypt:
Indonesia:
UK:
Learners can read the Easier English versions of the interview, then read the originals and note the differences in vocabulary and sentence structure.