Can We Afford to Go Green? Can We Afford Not To?

The main goals of this ESL lesson plan are to:

• – talk about whether going green is worth the cost through fun activities and real-life scenarios;
• – practice speaking and discussion skills including opinion expression, agreeing/disagreeing techniques, and argumentation abilities;
• – watch a video about the trillion dollar paradox and develop vocabulary through matching exercises and scenario analysis.

In this Intermediate speaking practice lesson students talk about whether going green is worth the cost through fun activities like matching exercises, discussion questions, and real-life scenarios. 

Warm-up

The lesson kicks off with students discussing different ideas related to moving toward a green economy.

Video

Students watch a video “The trillion dollar paradox.” After viewing, they discuss the main messages from the video using phrases provided.

Speaking

Next, students read a number of statements and decide if they agree or disagree. They are asked to give reasons for their opinions. Then they pick three statements and try to argue for the opposite view. In the following exercise, they pick a few questions from the boxes and share their thoughts on them. After that, they discuss related topics. Next, the students match the words in a box to the correct category about going green and explain their reasoning. Finally, they look at a few scenarios and explain how they would react.

Discussion

To wrap up the lesson, students read about the costs of going green and say if they think their country can afford to make these changes.