STARTER Ask students to work individually and then in groups, thinking of similar situations. As a prompt, suggest The Starter sections provide a lead-in to the topic of the unit. an example such as taking a really long time to pay for This section provides an opportunity for extensive spoken shopping when you realize that the person behind you is interaction, as students exchange ideas on common human impatient and wants to be served as quickly as possible. Set situations that are uncomfortable, and illustrate these with a short time limit for the discussion.
When the time limit personal examples. Students then use their understanding to is up, ask students to feed back their ideas to the other identify similar contexts in a dialogue. group or the class as a whole. 1 Write the expression You’re only human on the board, ■ ■ W [CD 1:Track 1] Explain that students are going and elicit from the class what they think this means.
to listen to a couple of old friends, Bridget and Mark, Explain to the class that the phrase is often used as a discussing an event that Bridget has attended. Ask way of explaining or justifying behaviour that is perhaps students to listen once and note down where Bridget has less than perfect. The underlying meaning is that what been. the person has done is just part of human nature and therefore should be accepted.
Play the recording again, this time encouraging students to note down which of the situations 1-12 Bridget has Refer students to the list of situations 1-12 on SB p7, experienced. Give students some time to check their and explain that these are common occurrences which notes, then check answers as a class. As an extension, ask people have to deal with. Read through the situations as the class to decide if Bridget was justified in the way she a class, checking any new vocabulary for meaning and behaved, e.
was she just being human or do they think pronunciation. Ask students to work in pairs and discuss she was being unfair? whether they have experienced similar situations. As students do this, go around the class, monitoring and Answers assisting with vocabulary. Bridget has been to a reunion.
She has experienced situations 1,2. Once students have discussed the list, select several 11. students to tell the rest of the class their anecdotes. READING AND SPEAKING {SB p8) After students have discussed what they expect to read under each heading, ask them to again close their books.
What makes us human? Direct students to the headings on the board and ask them to work in groups, evaluating which of the ten A B O U T THE TEXT things are the most important. Remind students to provide reasons for their choices and to give examples to The question ‘What makes us human?’ has intrigued illustrate their views. Monitor the discussion, assisting scientists and philosophers for centuries. Current with language or examples where necessary.
research into DNA has given us a clear idea of how humans differ as a species, and recent behavioural 2 Ask students to read the text, dealing with any vocabulary studies have revealed that having the capacity to think queries, or allowing students to use a dictionary. Ask about alternative futures and make deliberate choices the class if they agree with the ideas expressed by the accordingly are key human characteristics distinct from author - if they don’t, ask them to explain which areas other primates. they disagree with, and why. Draw attention to the fact that many popular science articles don’t always provide The text in this section is an example of a popular evidence for their claims, and so are more opinion-based science article, based on the writings of American author than other forms of scientific writing.
While science journalism focuses on recent scientific developments or breakthroughs, Ask students to read lines a-j, which are the final lines of popular science is more wide-ranging, and intended for each of the ten paragraphs. Ask students to note down, or a general audience. underline, the key information in each sentence. Explain that key information in scientific or more academic texts is The idea o f‘symbolic thought’ is derived from usually found in noun phrases.
Ask students to match each developmental psychology and refers to the sentence to a paragraph. Elicit the answer for paragraph 1 representation of reality through the use of abstract as an example. Once they have done this, they should read concepts such as words, gestures, and numbers. the paragraphs again to ensure that the match is logical Symbolic thought is generally present in most children and grammatically accurate.
from the age of 18 months. Students lead in to the topic by discussing Answers the introduction, paragraph headings, and images a5 b6 c7 d8 e4 f3 g l h lO i9 j2 used in the text. This helps to set the context, gain an overview of how the text is organized, and assist students in making predictions about the article’s content. After In your own words reading and checking their predictions, students do In your own words is a new feature that appears in each unit a more detailed comprehension task.
Students then of New Headway Advanced, Fourth edition. This provides go on to paraphrase the main ideas in the text before advanced level students with the opportunity to paraphrase discussing some of the key issues it raises. and reprocess key information from authentic texts as oral Encourage students to use the context to assist with summaries. any new vocabulary.
With weaker classes, or if you are 3 Elicit from students the different ways in which you can short of time, you could pre-teach the following: unique, paraphrase someone else’s ideas, e. using synonyms empathy, morality, paradox, posture, originated, dexterity. other animals and birds — ► most other species / Note that the vocabulary which is highlighted in the text amazing achievements — ► incredible accomplishments), is the focus of a task on synonyms in exercise 4. changing word order or sentence structure (e.
Owr brain sets us apart —►We are set apart by our brains), changing 1 Tell students to close their books. Write Ten things that word form or part of speech. make us human on the board. Read through this as a Ask students to work in pairs and read through the statement, checking for understanding.
Ask students prompts 1-10, checking the meaning of any new to work in small groups and set a short time limit for vocabulary. them to brainstorm as many ideas as they can for the ten Ask students to take turns to use the prompts to features or attributes. Ask students to share their ideas as a paraphrase the key points from the text in their own class. Collate the most frequent suggestions on the board.
Give students some time to draft and check their Then ask students to open their books and compare their paraphrases before they share their ideas. As students ideas with those in the article. draft their sentences, monitor and assist with grammar Direct students to the text. Ask them to look at the and vocabulary as necessary.
photographs, title, and paragraph headings. Explain that any time students come across a new piece of writing they should use these features to gain an overview of the text. As students read the headings, note these on the board. Vocabulary Once the discussion has come to a natural end, or a time 4 Read through the items in the box, checking for limit has been reached, ask groups to feed back to the class, summarizing the points they discussed and any agreements/ pronunciation.
Explain to students that by focusing on disagreements raised. For the final bullet point, note on synonyms they will extend their vocabulary range and the board all additional suggestions to the list of ten things help them to process texts. After students have matched that make us human. Ask the class to evaluate this list of the items, ask them to work in pairs and decide on why additional ideas by ranking the suggestions in order.
As they the author may have chosen one form over the other. Note that choice of lexis is often dependent upon the assumed do this, suggest that they offer reasons for their choices. reader, collocation, or the genre. For example, live in E X T R A A C T IV IT Y sounds a little too ‘everyday’ to substitute for inhabit in the formal phrase ‘.
enabled humans to inhabit You could further consolidate the language of the lesson by asking students to work in groups on the Answers idea of What makes us modern humans. Ask students characteristic = trait perplexing = puzzling to imagine that they have been invited to give a brief forebears = ancestors achievements with = feats o f popular science presentation on the attributes of modern flourish = thrive uses = functions man (and woman). Emphasize that the focus here can be desire = urge main = chief humorous, and that you are mostly interested in students little evidence = few traces ties = bonds generating their own content for describing human live in = inhabit activity. Provide an example, such as The modern human is able to watch TV, surf the Internet, maintain friendships What do you think? on social networking sites, and simultaneously buy things he/she didn’t really know they wanted.
Give students time The What do you think? section gives students the to plan up to ten points, and draft their presentation. opportunity to talk about personal experiences and express Monitor and help as necessary. Let students present their opinions about the topic of the lesson. Unless you have a very ideas in groups to the class/other students.
small class, these activities are best done in groups of three to six. It can be helpful to nominate one student in each group to be the discussion leader. It is their job to ask the questions, make sure everyone gets a chance to speak, and to decide when to move on from one question to the next. As this role is cognitively challenging, you must make sure that a different student is chosen each time students do a discussion task.
S U G G E S T IO N It may be useful to revise language exponents for giving and justifying opinions, agreeing, disagreeing, arguing, and summing up. Note down these headings on the board, and divide the class into six groups. Ask each group to brainstorm as many exponents as they can within a given time. Once the time is up, ask groups to exchange lists and read, correct, or add exponents.
Once you are satisfied that students have noted down a wide range of exponents, note these on the board. If necessary, these may then be drilled for accurate pronunciation and intonation. LANGUAGE FOCUS {SB plO) Active and passive Passive forms move the focus of attention from the subject of an active sentence to The Languagefocus section in each unit aims to get students the object. Note that in other languages, reflexive or to think analytically about language form and use.
It provides impersonal constructions might be used instead of clear examples of how language works, then asks questions or passives. sets tasks to guide students towards a better understanding. The Grammar Reference on SB p i45 looks at time, Understanding is consolidated as students transfer aspect, and how to choose the correct tense. It is a good information into charts, complete controlled written exercises, idea to read this section carefully before teaching the negotiate meaning by discussing examples, or provide Languagefocus.
It is also worthwhile noting the Ll personalized content reflecting the unit’s language aims. interference issues that might arise with your group of At the start of any new level of a course, it is important to students, so these can be c early explained.
