Realpolitik

The main goals of this ESL lesson plan are to:

• – expand vocabulary related to politics through gap-fill sentence exercises and definition matching activities;
• – improve comprehension skills by watching a video about Henry Kissinger’s political legacy and reading a text about realpolitik, followed by targeted questions and strategy identification exercises;
• – develop critical thinking and discussion abilities through creating action plans for difficult state situations and engaging in conversations about famous political quotes.

In this C2 lesson plan, students will practice vocabulary related to politics.

Warm-up 

The lesson begins with an engaging activity where students come up with action plans to deal with potential difficult situations in a state.

Video 

Students will view a video titled “Henry Kissinger, controversial U.S. secretary of state, dead at 100.” After watching the video, they will answer questions on the main ideas presented.

Exercises 

Students will learn new vocabulary by picking the right word to fill the gap in sentences and matching terms with their definitions.

Reading 

In this part, the students will read a short text about realpolitik and take part in an exercise where they are asked to pick out which strategies were mentioned in the text.

Discussion 

The lesson concludes with a discussion around a famous quote.