‘We need to become the solution’: older New Zealanders join climate change fight

Level: Advanced – Teacher’s notes

Key:
Article summary: Taking action against 1. limit
climate change is no longer just something 2. speculated
that young people do. The results of a 3. consciousness
10-year study show that older people are
4. reckoning
getting involved, too.
5. attributed to
6. clinch
Time: 90 minutes, plus extra time
for presentations
3. Comprehension check
Skills: Reading, Speaking, Writing
a. Students decide whether the statements are true or
Language focus: Vocabulary
false according to the information they read in the
article. They should rewrite any that are incorrect
Materials needed: One copy of the
worksheet per student to make them true. This will leave them with a
10-sentence summary of the article.

Key:
1. Warmer 1. False. Winters these days are warmer than
60 years ago. He hardly ever gets ice on his
a. Students share their answers to the questions with bird bath.
a partner or in small groups to introduce the topic of 2. True.
climate change and its effects on the weather and 3. True.
people’s lives, livelihoods and living conditions. 4. False. The awareness of climate change has
increased in both groups, however, younger
2. Key words people are still more aware in general.
5. False. He first heard discussions about climate
a. Students write the correct word from the word pool change in the 1990s; then, in his retirement, he
next to the definitions on the lines provided. Then began reading more about it.
they should find and highlight them in the article to 6. False. He didn’t take the round-the-world trip
read them in context. like many other retirees as he realized that he
had to limit his contribution to climate change.
Key: 7. False. One of these changes was to cut back
1. wrought by 9. perceived as on the amount of meat he eats, but he didn’t
2. awareness 10. nutters become a vegetarian.
3. reckoning 11. baby boomer 8. False. He joined a local climate change action
4. rhetoric 12. latter group called Low Carbon Kāpiti (he didn’t start it
5. limit 13. speculated and it’s not only for the over 60s).
6. clinch 14. attributed to 9. True.
7. legacy 15. policymakers 10. False. Although many believe climate change
8. consciousness to be real, fewer people overall believe that it is
caused by human activity.
b. Before reading the article carefully, students use
some of the key words to fill the gaps in the 4. Key language
sentences to ensure that they understand and know
how the words are used in other contexts. a. Students find the multi-word verbal phrases from
the article.
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 ‘We need to become the solution’: older New Zealanders join climate change fight
Level: Advanced – Teacher’s notes

Key:
1. take (something or someone) for granted
2. from the outset
3. extolling the joys of
4. a strict set of values
5. sit on the sideline
6. rolling up their sleeves
7. get fired up (about something)
8. a substantial shift in attitudes

b. Next, they use them to talk about the article.

c. Students choose the expressions they would

most like to learn to use well, and write one or two
example sentences for each one.

5. Discussion

a. Students discuss the questions directly from, or

connected to, the article.

6. In your own words

a. Whatever their age group, students work in pairs

or small groups and do the task on the worksheet.
They should present their final product – this might
be a radio or TV spot, a newspaper ad, posters
for around town, a sketch that could be acted out,
etc., whatever they think will work best – to the rest
of the class. Finally, the students could discuss
which method they think will be most effective at
encouraging older people to become active against
climate change.
D •
TE E E
SI AD L
EB LO B
W N IA

Published by Macmillan Education Ltd. © Macmillan Education Limited, 2021.

M W P
O DO O
FR BE OC

Home >> Adults >> General English >> NEWS LESSONS

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