A lesson plan.
"How to be a villager"
"How to be a villager"
This lesson explores the idea of “being a villager”. Students work with a graded or original text, practise reading for gist and detail, discuss questions, and learn a strategy for when to infer meaning and when to translate (based on P.Watkins’ 'Teaching and Developing Reading Skills').
Goals: develop students’ reading and speaking skills, discuss community, connection, and showing up for others, and raise awareness of helpful reading strategies (inferring meaning from the context).
Timing: 20-60 minutes.
If you only have 10 minutes: Do the lead-in and jump to discussion questions in exercise 5. Go over questions 1-3. Set the reading as homework.
Timing: 20-60 minutes.
If you only have 10 minutes: Do the lead-in and jump to discussion questions in exercise 5. Go over questions 1-3. Set the reading as homework.
Important note: For this lesson, I’ve prepared one original text (B2+) and two graded versions (A2+, and B1–B2). All texts include the sentence “Invite someone for beer and olives”, as does the original text. If you teach teens, I’d recommend using the teen-friendly version I made where I changed it to “coke and chips” :)
Lesson ideas
Say something like:
“I’ve noticed a trend on social media where people share this quote. How do you understand it?” Show students the quote and/or a short TikTok video that says:
“Everyone wants a village, but no one wants to be a villager.”
For lower-level students, tell a simple story if needed:
“Imagine a new mother with a baby. Her family, neighbours, friends, and coworkers all help in small ways. Someone cooks, someone visits, someone holds the baby so she can rest. This idea is called ‘It takes a village.’”
Invite students to discuss:
“I promised to take my friend to the airport at 5 a.m… but I don’t want to wake up. It’s uncomfortable. But it would be nice to have someone pick me up at the airport”
“I’ve noticed a trend on social media where people share this quote. How do you understand it?” Show students the quote and/or a short TikTok video that says:
“Everyone wants a village, but no one wants to be a villager.”
For lower-level students, tell a simple story if needed:
“Imagine a new mother with a baby. Her family, neighbours, friends, and coworkers all help in small ways. Someone cooks, someone visits, someone holds the baby so she can rest. This idea is called ‘It takes a village.’”
Invite students to discuss:
- Do you want a “village” in your life?
- What’s good about having a village?
- Why do people sometimes avoid being villagers?
“I promised to take my friend to the airport at 5 a.m… but I don’t want to wake up. It’s uncomfortable. But it would be nice to have someone pick me up at the airport”
Ask students to read the text very briefly. Tell them it’s okay if they don’t know some words, we just need the main idea. Invite them to find an answer to the question: What advice does the author give?
Before reading in detail, tell learners they can look up a maximum of three words while reading. This encourages them to:
With lower-levels, ask them instruction checking questions, e.g. "How many words can you translate?" before you let them read.
- focus on the overall meaning
- practise inferring from context
- avoid stopping every few lines
- stronger readers → allow them to look up 2–3 words
- weaker readers → allow them to look up 5–6 words
With lower-levels, ask them instruction checking questions, e.g. "How many words can you translate?" before you let them read.
Allow students more time and let them find the answers. Briefly check the answers.
- Show answers for A2
- Show answers for B1-B2
- Show answers for C1
Ask learners to compare the 2–3 words they looked up. Hold a short whole-class discussion on how they chose their words and when it’s better to guess or translate.
Discuss the questions, use the ones I’ve made or feel free to adapt them!
- Questions for A2
- Questions for B1-B2
- Questions for C1+
Share the full podcast conversation (1 hour) for extended listening or homework:
https://open.substack.com/pub/priyaparker/p/watch-rethinking-our-relationships?r=6sphs2&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web×tamp=2.4&showWelcomeOnShare=false
https://open.substack.com/pub/priyaparker/p/watch-rethinking-our-relationships?r=6sphs2&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web×tamp=2.4&showWelcomeOnShare=false