This is a lesson based on a TED Talk by Christien Meindertsma, a Dutch author and researcher who followed the afterlife of a single pig after it left the farm.  Obviously it then went on to the abbatoir, but the various places it went after that makes very interesting listening!

The original TED talk is available to view on the TED website here: http://www.ted.com/talks/christien_meindertsma_on_pig_05049.html and further down this post.

The lesson is a fairly standard listening based lesson – there’s an topic awareness raising stage, a content prediction task for the first listening, and a listening for detail task that mirrors the format of FCE, CAE and CPE part two (note-taking) listening tasks.  This is then followed by an extended speaking task where learners react to the content and come to a whole class conclusion as to how to rate the talk.

A full version of the lesson plan and materials is available to download in pdf format here :teflgeek – TED Talk The Many Uses of the Pig – the lesson is timed at about 75 minutes, but there’s a stage in there that can probably be dropped for shorter lesson lengths, and there’s an extension task for longer lesson lengths.

As always, any feedback, comments, criticisms and queries are welcome!

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