Thoughts From Within - A Modern Poem

Poem - Thoughts From Within 

In this post I have created a lesson based on a poem written by a famous actor (Advanced level)

Lesson Objectives:

• It is designed for a one-to-one lesson, but could  be used with a group.  
• Duration: 1 hour
• The idea of the lesson is to give students a taste of some modern poetry in English. Students will expand vocabulary, use their imagination, improve their listening skills, practise expressing opinions, analysing text and recognising and interpreting figures of speech in poetry. They will also improve their pronunciation and poetry reading skills. 

Freedom

How would you define Freedom?  

This lesson is based on a wonderful article from the BBC Magazine concerning Freedom.  I created it for one-on-one lessons with Upper Intermediate and Advanced students.  However I'm certain that it would work just as well, if not better with a group.

Lesson Objective : 

The main objective of this lesson is to promote discussion, to encourage students to talk about the topic of freedom and the difference between the feeling of freedom and the state of freedom. In this lesson students will practise listening, expressing opinions, describing how something makes them feel, practise using comparatives and generally expand their vocabulary.  

Warm up:

Ask your students the following questions:

• How would you define freedom?
• When you think of the word freedom, what topics/issues/situations come to mind? (Prison/animals/war/slavery/media/religion/free time)
• Can you think of any synonyms for the word freedom? (Exemption/immunity/liberty/ability)
• Can you think of any antonyms for the word freedom?(Restraint/captivity/confinement/imprisonment/restriction/slavery)
• Can you name some different types of freedom? (Discuss the meaning of each with your student:Freedom of speech/Political freedom/Physical freedom/National freedom/Freedom of belief/Freedom of the press/Economic freedom/Freedom of expression) 

Freedom 2014: What freedom looks like to you

As part of the BBC's freedom 2014 season they asked their webpage viewers to send in photos of what 'freedom looks like to them'. They received more than a thousand responses and showcased them in the article that this lesson is based on.

BBC News Magazing: Freedom 2014