A lesson on challenges? Why not....
Let us start with a list of verbs
BE
POSE
PRESENT
FACE
MEET
RESPOND TO
RISE TO
TAKE ON/UP
SET YOURSELF
and ask students to guess which noun collocates with them.
If students find it too difficult, it would be a good idea to give them some hints.
Once the word we are looking for has been discovered, I put on the board a set of synonyms for the words: "easy", "difficult", "possible" and "impossible. These words/expressions include:
a piece of cake, doable, achievable, tough, no picnic, tricky, plain sailing, easy-peasy, feasible, unattainable, daunting, effortless....
Students' task it to divide them into the four categories mentioned above.
The words will be useful in the activity that follows. The idea comes from Inside Out and is composed of a few questions which students have to answer using the previously mentioned words.
Of course, we don't have to stop at the first answer but continue asking questions which will keep the discussion going.
Here are some ideas for the discussion:
How difficult/easy is it for you to:
- take part in a race?
- perform on stage?
- give a speech in front of a big audience?
- take an exam?
- attend a job interview?
- cook a meal for a big group of people?
- meet your boy/girlfriend's parents?
- ask somebody out on a date?
I then use a reading exercise from Inside Out (advanced) on Challenges.
It deals with Ben Saunders and his expeditions. The text is quite easy to digest even for those who are below the advanced level.
There are vocabulary exercises related to the text, and an exercise which includes prefix "self-" and suffixe "-able".
Ben Saunders is a contemporary explorer and so I like to compare him with Captain Scott. Both Scott and Saunders reached the South Pole; Scott in 1912, Saunders hundred years later.
There is a listening exercise in English File (upper-intermediate U3B, I've got an older edition, so I can't guarantee that it is included in the new one) in which somebody describes the mistakes made by Scott and his team. I play it to my student while showing them
at the same time images from the expedition that can be found on youtube (the video makes this story more interesting) :
The story of the unsuccessful expedition helps point out what went wrong and as a result leads to a grammar point of using "should+ perfect infinitive" to express criticism.
A pair work can be done once the grammar point has been explained. One student can think of a silly, irresponsible, not well thought-out thing they did, and the other reacts using the "should+ have +pp." structure.
e.g. Student A. I bought him the book he already has. Student B. You should have asked him first.
Such sentences can be prepared beforehand:
e.g. When I went to Russia I couldn't speak to anybody.
I'm exhausted. I've walked all the way here.
I've got a terrible hangover.
We thought we knew the way but we got completely lost.
I have run out of money, and it is only the 20th!
(the majority of the ideas for these sentences come from English File upper-intermediate)
There are two more things (this seems to be a long lesson:)
I like to show my students what exploring looks like these days, so that we can have a short discussion on the similarities and differences. Here is an example of a short video with Saunders as its main character;
If you still have some time left, or if you want to revise the vocabulary from this class,
I recommend a TED video called "30 day challenge"
(it could also be used as a challenging surprise-test at the end of the class)
Let students watch it and summarise it using at least 5 words they have seen that day (collocations as well as synonyms of the words "difficult","easy" etc)
have a challenging lesson
