Sample Content-based English Teaching Lesson Plan

Brendon Albertson, © 2022

Students: University Year 2, CEFR B2 (Intermediate / Independent users)

Class size: 15
Class time: 1 hr, 40 mins

Background/context: This is the first lesson in a task- and content-based course called “Integrated English,”
which adopts the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a theme. The course is 8 weeks and will focus
on 2 SDGs chosen by students during the first several lessons. Students will also complete a group project to
create a piece of informational media (i.e. blog, video) based on an SDG they choose. This lesson plan is for
Day 1, in which students explore the SDGs as a class. Following this lesson, they will choose specific SDGs to
focus on in the course and their research project.

Language Learning Objectives – Students will:

Reading:
1. Extract important information from an infographic
2. Recognize phrases that indicate positive/negative trends and increases/decreases in text

Speaking:
3. Use new vocabulary/collocations to describe global issues such as poverty, gender equality, sanitation,
etc.
4. Verbally summarize information from an infographic
5. Give and comment on opinions using sentence frames
6. Practice intonation when presenting information

Content Learning Objectives – Students will be able to:

7. Describe an overview of 3-4 global issues informing the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Materials:

1. Sustainable Development Goals Infographics:

(print and hang around walls of classroom)
• Ending hunger
• Ending poverty
• Quality Education
• Gender Equality
• Safe Drinking water & Sanitation
• Sustainable Energy
• Climate Action
• Ocean conservation

2. Text on the progress of SDG #1 (Ending poverty)

(p. 3-4 only, print one for each student)

3. Highlighters of 2 separate colors

(1 pair for each pair of students)

Lesson Plan by Brendon Albertson, © 2022

 Lesson Procedure
Time: Learning activity:

5 mins Intro:
Ask students to name global issues/problems they can think of. Write these on the board as they
are named, and assist with vocabulary where needed (i.e. poor -> poverty, climate change, etc.)

Briefly show students the UN’s SDG website and explain the concept of the 17 Sustainable
Development Goals. Play the short video.

40 mins Task: Elevator Pitch to summarize an SDG

(Learning Objectives 1, 3, 4, 6, 7)

Form groups of 2-3, assign each to one of the 8 infographics hung around the room. Tell students
their task is to prepare a “team elevator pitch” to summarize the issue to us.

1. Tell students you’ll give them an example of an elevator pitch using one of the SDG
infographics from the website (not one of the 8 around the room). Explain that this is to
help them focus on sentence stress for their own elevator pitch. First, bring up the
infographic on the projector.

2. Prepare to model an elevator pitch. Ask Ss to listen to you speak and write down which
words sound louder, longer, and higher (the stressed words). They should write down as
many as they can, and use the infographic on the screen to help with spelling unfamiliar
words.

3. Give the example elevator pitch, exaggerating the sentence stress and speaking with
passion, gestures, walking around the room, making eye contact, etc.

4. Elicit which words the Ss heard were stressed. Explain that stressed words are generally
content/meaningful words, and point these out from the infographic.

5. Do a few listen/repeat drills with sentences from the infographic, encouraging appropriate
sentence stress.

6. Allow groups to each, interpret, and prepare a summary of their assigned infographic.
Assist with pronunciation and understanding as needed, and ensure that all members of
each group plan to say something during the presentation of their elevator pitch.

7. Groups each present their elevator pitches. As groups present, write on the board any
important or difficult vocabulary that comes up. After the presentation, call on students to
define these words, or explain/show pictures if needed.

8. Assign some or all of words on the board to Ss’ vocabulary notebooks, incorporate them
into a later quiz, note them for adding to a classroom word wall, take a photo of the board
to post on the LMS, etc.

20 mins Task: Small group Discussion

(Learning Objectives 3, 5, 7)

1. TPR – Ss move toward the infographic for the SDG they’re most interested in.

Lesson Plan by Brendon Albertson, © 2022

 2. Small group discussion: Assign groups of 3-4, and a reporter for each group, who will
summarize the group’s discussion in 60 seconds. Write discussion Qs on board: 1) Which
goal do you feel you could make an impact with? 2) Have you been involved or seen
anything in Japan related to one of these goals?

3. Allow groups to discuss, monitoring and assisting as needed.

4. Reporter from each group summarizes the group’s discussion in 60 seconds. Write any
interesting/important ideas that come up on the board, along with which group/student
had this idea.

10 mins Task: All class Follow-up discussion

The goal of this task is to help students practice “piggybacking,” or responding to others’ ideas.

1. Model the concept of “piggybacking” – Make a comment on one of the ideas written on the
board from the previous small group discussion, i.e. Group 3 had an interesting point about
____. I agree that ____, but I also think ____. Satomi from Group 2 mentioned ____, which
made me think about ____. Write, type, or project a few such sentence frames for students
to use.

2. Give Ss 5 minutes to read the ideas on the board and prepare their follow-up comments
using the sentence frames.

3. Ask students to share their comments with their group first.

4. Finally, call on a few students to share with the class.

20 mins Task: Reading/vocabulary exercise

1. Pass out the two colors of highlighters and copies of p. 3-4 of the Text on the progress of
the SDGs This part focuses on the progress of SDG #1 (Ending poverty). Ask students to
read independently and highlight facts they perceive as positive and negative using the 2
highlighter colors, and to circle most surprising things they learned from the text.

2. Ask Ss to compare what they highlighted in pairs.

3. Elicit what Ss highlighted and put them in a T-chart on the board, under “positive” and
“negative.” Draw attention to any vocabulary or collocations here (i.e. a rapid increase in,
little progress, etc.)

4. Call on Ss to share they facts they found most surprising from the reading.

5 mins Wrap up/HW: Look at the UN’s 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) on the website. Choose 3
you want to learn more about. From these 3, choose 1 you want to research and teach us about.
Submit your ideas on the Google Form.

Before leaving the classroom, tell me which goals you found most interesting and might want to
choose for your research project.

Lesson Plan by Brendon Albertson, © 2022

Follow-up / Future lessons:

• Based on students’ interests, I chose one SDG as a theme for weeks 1-4 of the course, and one SDG for
weeks 5-8.
• Reading materials, videos, and local field trips related to these SDGs served as the basis for vocabulary,
speaking, reading, and writing learning activities in the course.
• Additionally, students chose one SDG goal for their group research project.

Lesson Plan by Brendon Albertson, © 2022