LESSON PLAN

Teacher's name: Mersida Bei

Age, Level and grade of SS: 17, Upper Intermediate, 3rd Grade of High School
Type of activity planned: Listening
Unit and lesson: Longman Opportunities Upper Intermediate, Module 9 , Society 27, Utopia
What is your objective for this activity: SS will be able use strategies for listening to
understanding cultural references. Also the SS will understand the term Utopia. SS will also be
able to make suggestions on the topic of society and government as well as discuss the topics. In
addition, SS will also be able to use multi-part verbs with up in order to better describe their
claims and opinions.
What sort of difficulties do you expect SS to have? How will you deal with them?
One of the possible difficulties the T could encounter is that individual S may know less about
British culture than others, also the SS might not be introduced to the term Utopia nor to the
terms related to understanding the cultural references mentioned during the lesson. Therefore, in
order to deal with this issue the T might ask if there is a volunteer in the SS who might know
more about the term Utopia. In case none of the SS is informed the T will introduce this term
gradually through the lesson, firstly by introducing and explaining the origin of term Utopia
and then pointing out its characteristics though the exercises.
Time

Procedure
T starts the lesson by saying what the topic for the
class is. T writes the name of the lesson on the
blackboard Utopia. T asks if any of the SS
know what the term means. In case none of the
students volunteer to explain it, the T goes on to
explain the origin of the word Utopia.

7
-(Utopia was written by Sir Thomas Moore in
1516 and it is his version of an ideal society. It
was an idea of a progressive society, with some
new ideas that are now part of our modern
society. Sir Thomas Moore was an important
advisor of King Henry VIII of England. The King

Class
interaction
TSS
TS

Materials

book p.106,
blackboard

ordered his death because Sir Thomas was against

the closing of the Catholic Church. Sir Thomas
noticed the problems in his society and he fought
to change it.)

T then asks SS to look at the picture on page 106

and instructs them to use it as a reference to
answer the four questions about Utopia in
exercise 1. T assigns students into pairs so that
they can discuss the questions and make
predictions.
T monitors the discussion and makes sure that all
pairs are participating in the activity, helping the
weaker SS.
T offers a chance for volunteers to give their
opinions and predictions about Utopia using the
picture. T uses this as a chance to instruct the
class to pay attention to the blackboard as he
writes down and explains some new words that
will help them during the lesson;
society a group or more people living together
government way of controlling society
democracy government by the people
property something that a person owns or has
value worth in money, important
slave a person without freedom
________________________________________
T asks the SS for attention and instructs them to
listen to the Story of Utopia. (Tapescript page
155.) For the first listening the T asks the SS to
listen to the story and check if their opinions and
predictions are true.
T then plays the cassette and monitors SS to make
sure they pay attention.
After the first listening the T checks with the
students and briefly discusses with them whether
their opinions and predictions were true. If
necessary the T will play the cassette again.
Possible Answers; 1) No differences. 2) attend
lectures, games like chess 3) students own
answer 4) becoming a slave.
________________________________________
T then instructs the SS that they will listen to the
cassette again, and that they should individually
list two things they found good and two things
they found bad about Utopia.

TSS
SS

book p.106,
blackboard

-book, page
106.
-tape, CD
player
TSS
SS

-book, page
106.
-tape, CD
player

T then plays the cassette and monitors class to

make sure they pay attention.
After the second listening the T asks if any of the
SS would like to share their opinion. In case none
volunteer, the T may ask an S to present their
opinion. If necessary the T will play the cassette
again.
In addition T asks SS if they would like to live in
Moores Utopia and that they should give reasons
for or against it.
________________________________________

T announces to the SS that they will listen to

another tapescript. (Tapescript page 155.)
T prepares the SS for it by presenting the
listening strategies in exercise 4 on page 106. T
points out that if SS do not understand a reference
in the tapescript, they should try to find the
meaning from the context.
Before playing the cassette, T instructs the SS to
read through items 1-11 listed below the listening
strategies in exercise 4 and to fill them out while
listening.
T then plays the cassette and monitors class to
make sure they pay attention. After the first
listening T asks the SS to report back their
guesses to the class. T makes sure that SS
followed the clues in the tapescript by checking if
they helped the SS understand the cultural
references.
Answers;
1) The Broadway- a street,
2) Rotherham a town,
3) Number 23- a bus,
4) season ticket a long term bus ticket,
5) Jaguar an expensive car,
6) East Enders a British TV show,
7) London Eye a big fair wheel,
8) Scunthorpe a town,
9) The Barbican/ the South Bank centres in
London with theatres,
10) The Ministry of Sound a popular club,
11) Scones a pastry, a kind of cake

________________________________________
T then instructs the students to turn the page to
107 and show them the function file exercise in
the upper left corner of the page. T gives SS time
to the SS to read the function file and instructs
them to pay attention to the two sorts of
suggestions, tentative and strong suggestions
when filling it out during the second listening.
T then plays the cassette and monitors class to
make sure they pay attention. If asked by the SS,
T may repeat the recording.
After the listening, the T checks the students
answers by having individual S read out the
sentences. T makes sure that SS are correcting
any mistakes they made.

________________________________________
Homework Write what you would change in
your town. ---??
_______________________________________
T goes on to explain the purpose of tentative and
strong suggestions to the SS.
-Tentative suggestions are generally weaker as
they lack confidence or certainty
-Strong suggestions are said with confidence and
without hesitation.
T then instructs the SS to think of at least 2
tentative and 2 strong suggestions by using the
expressions in the function file on page 107,
which they will have to present in front of the
class. T then checks what the SS have written by
calling out S to read their sentences.
Examples;
S-Its about time they improved the bus service!
S-They really should clean the river!
T-What about cleaning the park?
T-There could be a new pedestrian crossing.