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Ending poverty

Use this lesson in face-to-face or online lessons with your primary learners to discuss the concept of poverty.

Author
Adapted by Rachael Ro from an idea by Sylwia Zabor-Zakowska

Introduction

This lesson plan is based on an activity from the British Council publication Integrating global issues in the creative English language classroom, which provides innovative ideas for teaching while raising awareness of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

In this lesson, which supports Goal 1: No poverty, learners look at images contrasting wealth and poverty and think about what it means to be rich, poor or to have enough. They consider non-material needs, such as access to education and services, as well as material needs, then they make their own decisions in groups about what they think would be fair for everybody to have, using language for agreeing and disagreeing. Finally, they work together to create a poster with their ideas.

Important note: As this lesson deals with poverty and inequality be mindful of any of your learners whose lives may be affected by these issues. Consider if it is a suitable issue to discuss.

Learning outcomes:

  • Discuss the issue of poverty
  • Consider what poverty means
  • Review and learn vocabulary for material and non-material needs and possessions
  • Practise language for agreeing and disagreeing
  • Take part in group work and use collaboration skills

Age and level:

Aged 9–12 years  (CEFR level B1+)

Time:

95-100 minutes or two shorter lessons

Materials:

  • Face-to-face lesson plan
  • Online lesson plan
  • Presentation

 In addition, you will need:

  • an image of Mahatma Gandhi
  • a selection of images that contrast wealth and poverty in different contexts

Face-to-face lesson one (50 minutes)

Warmer (10 minutes)
  • Either display slide 2 or write the following on the board:
    1.    I think English is fun 
    2.    I think chocolate is horrible. 
  •  Ask learners if the agree or disagree with the first sentence.
  • Give learners some actions to do to indicate agreement or disagreement, e.g. jump for agree and turn around for disagree.
  •  Repeat this sequence with the second sentence.
  • Elicit that sentence 1 is positive (fun) and sentence 2 is negative (horrible)
  •  Tell the learners they need to make 4 sentences like this, two positive and two negative. 
  • Invite learners in turn to give you a sentence. Each time, use an agreeing or disagreeing phrase (with polite intonation on the disagreeing ones), such as:
  1. Yes, you’re right. I agree. I think so too.
  2. I don’t think so. I’m not so sure. Hmm, I think I disagree.
  • Display slide 3. Learners do the corresponding action each time you agree or disagree with a sentence. They can think of as funny or strange sentences as they like, and/or you can agree or disagree unexpectedly, e.g. I agree. I think chocolate is horrible. 
  • Afterwards, ask learners to remember what phrases you used to agree and disagree with them and write them on the board in a place you can refer to later.
Introducing the topic (10 minutes)
  • Show learners a picture of Mahatma Gandhi and ask if they know who he is. Do they know anything about him? Learners might recognise the picture or his name, but may not know anything further, so be ready to tell them something brief.
  • Either display slide 4 or write on the board this quote from Gandhi: “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need but not every man’s greed”. Check learners understand ‘satisfy’ and ‘greed’. E.g:
  1.  Satisfy - to give what is needed
  2. Greed – to want more than you need
  • Discuss the quote briefly or in a little more detail, depending on your learners. E.g.
  1. What does the planet provide? (food, water, materials/resources) 
  2. Does everybody take only what they need, or do some people take more than they need? Does that leave enough for everyone else?
Discussion (10 minutes)
  • Show learners the images you prepared that contrast wealth and poverty. Ask them to tell you what they can see and what the pictures show about how the people live. What is it in the pictures that gives us that information, for example their clothes, the condition of the buildings, what the people are doing, etc.?
  • Do they think this is fair? Teach the word ‘inequality’. Where do they think this inequality in wealth exists? Can we do anything about it? 
  • Discuss this briefly or in a little more detail, depending on your learners. The aim is to raise their awareness of the issue and that it exists worldwide, and that it’s not OK. They do not need to have any concrete ideas of how it can be solved at this stage but let them share if they do. 
  • Remind them of Gandhi’s quote. Some learners may be able to suggest that there might be less inequality in wealth if people were less ‘greedy’.
Generating ideas (20 minutes)
  • Explain to the learners that the United Nations, an international organisation that works to bring peace and help solve world problems like poverty and climate change, has 17 special goals which all the UN countries agreed to in 2015. The goals are designed to help solve these world problems for everyone, everywhere, by 2030, and Goal 1 is ‘No poverty’.
  • Ask the learners the following questions and briefly discuss as a class. You can also display slide 6:
  1. What does ‘poor’ mean?
  2. What does ‘rich’ mean?
  3. What does ‘to have enough’ mean?
  • Now ask the learners these questions and elicit an example for each one. You can display slide 7:
    1.    What don’t poor people have? (food, water, electricity, a house, etc.)
    2.    What do you have if you ‘have enough’? (a car, holidays, a TV, a computer, books, etc.)
    3.    What does everybody need that you can’t buy? (family, friendship, happiness, etc.) 
  • Put learners into groups of three and ask them to answer the questions together by making lists in their notebooks.
  • Monitor and help them with any vocabulary they need or give them a few more examples if they get stuck on a question.
  • Regroup the learners so that they are with those from other groups who made the same list as them. What things are the same or different on their lists?
  • During class feedback, ask the learners if anyone had school/education, jobs/work, internet, healthcare, or similar on their lists. Are those things important? Why? Which list did/would they put them on?
  • Discuss this briefly or in a little more detail, depending on your learners. The aim is to raise their awareness that poverty also means not having access to education, information, services, opportunities and so on. 
  • -    When you ask why those things are important, some learners may suggest a connection between access to these things and causes of or solutions to poverty. Let them explain if they do. 

Face-to-face lesson two (45 minutes)

Vocabulary review (10 minutes)
  • Demonstrate the game by miming one piece of vocabulary generated in the previous stage. Ask learners to guess the word.
  • Then nominate one learners to be ‘teacher’. The teacher mimes something from their list, e.g. food, a house, a car, family, school, happiness, etc., and the other learners guess.
  • The learner who guesses correctly becomes 'teacher'.
Project preparation (10 minutes)
  • Put learners back into their original group of 3 and ask them to find their lists in their notebooks.
  • Tell the learners that they are going to make posters and their lists will help them.
  • Display slide 7 or draw three concentric circles on the board.
  •  In the inner circle, write ‘basic things that everybody needs’. 
  • In the middle circle, write ‘what we think it’s fair that everybody has’. 
  •  In the outer circle, write ‘what we think is extra’. Check that the learners understand the three categories.
  •  Tell the learners they are going to look at their lists again and:
  1. underline the basic things that everybody needs
  2. circle what they think it’s fair that everybody has
  3. star what they think is extra.
  • Tell them that they can underline, circle or star different things on different lists, but they need to agree. You can display slide 8. Elicit some examples, such as:
  • I think food and water are basic things that everybody needs.
  •  I think it’s fair that everybody has a computer.
  • I think a car is extra. 
  • Then refer the learners back to the agreeing and disagreeing language from the beginning of the lesson. Remind them that if they disagree, they should also say what they think instead and why.
Project – making the poster (20 minutes)
  • When the learners are ready, tell them that they are now going to make a poster that shows the three categories.
  • They can use the concentric circle design, or they might have their own ideas. 
  • They need to write the things they agreed on in the relevant parts and can draw pictures and illustrate or decorate their poster however they like, for example some learners might imagine the circles to be the planet.
  • Give the learners the materials they need and remind them to use English as they work together.
  •  Display the finished posters around the room. The learners can look at the other posters to see what similarities and differences there are and say which pictures and designs they like.


Tip:  after the lesson you could scan and upload their posters to a shared space and set a homework task for learners to look at them and leave a comment.

Setting homework (5 minutes)

Option 1 – Audio feedback

Learners write or make an audio recording saying what they appreciate having in their lives, e.g. a home, a family, toys, (access to) a device, going to school, etc., either for sharing in the following lesson or just for personal reflection.


Option 2 - Research

Ask learners to find out something about what inequalities in wealth exist in their country. You could ask them to find just one statistic, or you could ask them to find out their government’s definition of poverty, or they could find out if there are any projects to help poor people – do they think these projects simply support poor people or do they help people to get out of poverty?

 

  • If you would like the learners to search for information in English, give them some key phrases they could use.
  • Otherwise, it’s OK for them to look for the information in their own language, then explain what they found out in the next class in English, where you can help with any language needed.
Further ideas and resources

Online lesson one (50 minutes)

Before the lesson
  • Before you start the lesson:
  1. Test your microphone and camera to make sure they work.
  2. Make sure that you have the accompanying Presentation open and shared.
  3. Ask learners to have some paper and coloured pencils or felt tips ready. Or send them a link to an online tool, such as Google Drawings. If using an online resource, make sure you are familiar with the functions of the app.
At the start of the lesson
  • Welcome the learners as they arrive:
  1. Check that you can all hear and see each other.
  2. Check that they can see the first slide.
  • If they can’t, ask them (or ideally an adult they have present) to check their settings or troubleshoot in the way you have shown them previously. You may need to write this in the chat facility if they cannot hear you.


Tips:

  • Consider having a short task for the learners to do until they have all arrived. For example, you could have a poll set up (if your platform has this function) or a simple activity where they write in the chat, such as to say what they’ve done that week. 
  • Consider muting learners’ microphones after greeting them to avoid having too much background noise when you get started. Tell them if you do this and explain why. You could also suggest that, if possible, they use a headset with a mic rather than their device’s in-built speakers and mic.
Warmer (10 minutes)
  • Display slide 2:
  •  Ask learners if the agree or disagree with the first sentence: I think English is fun 
  •  Give learners some actions to do to indicate agreement or disagreement, e.g. jump for agree and turn around for disagree.: I think chocolate is horrible. 
  • Elicit that sentence 1 is positive (fun) and sentence 2 is negative (horrible)
  • Tell the learners they need to make 4 sentences like this, two positive and two negative. 
  • Invite learners in turn to give you a sentence. Each time, use an agreeing or disagreeing phrase (with polite intonation on the disagreeing ones), such as:
  1. Yes, you’re right. I agree. I think so too.
  2.  I don’t think so. I’m not so sure. Hmm, I think I disagree.
  • Learners do the corresponding action each time you agree or disagree with their sentence. They can think of as funny or strange sentences as they like, and/or you can agree or disagree unexpectedly, e.g. I agree for I think chocolate is horrible. 
  • Afterwards, ask learners to remember what phrases you used to agree and disagree with them. Display slide 3 and drill the responses.
Introducing the topic (10 minutes)
  • Show learners a picture of Mahatma Gandhi and ask if they know who he is. Do they know anything about him? Learners might recognise the picture or his name, but may not know anything further, so be ready to tell them something brief.
  • Display slide 4. Look at the quote from Gandhi and check the learners understand ‘satisfy’ and ‘greed’. E.g:
  1. Satisfy - to give what is needed
  2. Greed – to want more than you need
  • Discuss the quote briefly or in a little more detail, depending on your learners. 
    1.    What does the planet provide? (food, water, materials/resources) 
    2.    Does everybody take only what they need, or do some people take more than they need? 
    3.    Does that leave enough for everyone else?
Discussion (10 minutes)
  • Show learners the images you prepared that contrast wealth and poverty. Ask them to tell you what they can see and what the pictures show about how the people live. What is it in the pictures that gives us that information, for example their clothes, the condition of the buildings, what the people are doing, etc.?
  • Do they think this is fair? Teach the word ‘inequality’. Where do they think this inequality in wealth exists? Can we do anything about it? 
  • Discuss this briefly or in a little more detail, depending on your learners. The aim is to raise their awareness of the issue and that it exists worldwide, and that it’s not OK. They do not need to have any concrete ideas of how it can be solved at this stage but let them share if they do. 
  • Remind them of Gandhi’s quote. Some learners may be able to suggest that there might be less inequality in wealth if people were less ‘greedy’.
Generating ideas (20 minutes)
  • Explain to the learners that the United Nations, an international organisation that works to bring peace and help solve world problems like poverty and climate change, has 17 special goals which all the UN countries agreed to in 2015. The goals are designed to help solve these world problems for everyone, everywhere, by 2030, and Goal 1 is ‘No poverty’.
  • Display slide 5. Ask the learners the following questions and briefly discuss as a class:
  1. What does ‘poor’ mean?
  2. What does ‘rich’ mean?
  3. What does ‘to have enough’ mean?
  • Now display slide 6. Ask the learners these questions and elicit one example for each one:
  1. What don’t poor people have? (food, water, electricity, a house, etc.)
  2. What do you have if you ‘have enough’? (a car, holidays, a TV, a computer, books, etc.)
  3. What does everybody need that you can’t buy? (family, friendship, happiness, etc.)

Note: the learners will ideally work in groups of three in breakout rooms, if the platform you’re using has this function, and your learners are comfortable and responsible when working in breakout rooms. However, it can also be done with learners working individually or as a whole class.

  • Remind learners of the ‘breakout room rules’ before you move them there, for example speaking English only, staying on task, etc. 
  • Tell the learners that they need to work together in the breakout room to answer the questions by making lists. 
  • All the learners should contribute their ideas for each question, but each learner can be responsible for writing the list for a different question in their notebooks.
  • Copy and paste the questions into the chat, where learners will be able to see them even when they are in the breakout rooms. 
  • Put the learners in the breakout rooms and visit each breakout room as soon as possible to make sure the learners in each group are on task and working together.
  • Help them with any vocabulary they need or give them a few more examples if they get stuck on a question.
  •  If your platform has the function, turn your camera off while you monitor so as to disturb the learners less when you enter a room.
  • Before you bring learners back to the main room, visit each breakout room briefly and announce that they have two more minutes before you will bring them back. 
  • After two minutes, bring all the learners back. 
  • You might like to then regroup the learners in new breakout rooms so that they are with those from other groups who made the same list as them. What things are the same or different on their lists?
  • During class feedback, ask the learners if anyone had school/education, jobs/work, internet, healthcare, or similar on their lists. Are those things important? Why? Which list did/would they put them on?
  • Discuss this briefly or in a little more detail, depending on your learners. The aim is to raise their awareness that poverty also means not having access to education, information, services, opportunities and so on. 
  • When you ask why those things are important, some learners may suggest a connection between access to these things and causes of or solutions to poverty. Let them explain if they do.

Online lesson two (50 minutes)

Vocabulary review (10 minutes)
  • Learners will need to use their cameras for this activity
  • Demonstrate the game by miming one piece of vocabulary generated in the previous stage. Ask learners to guess the word.
  •  Then nominate one learners to be ‘teacher’. The teacher mimes something from their list, e.g. food, a house, a car, family, school, happiness, etc., and the other learners guess.
  • Learners could also play in small groups in breakout rooms.
Project – preparation (10 minutes)
  • Tell the learners that they are going to make posters and their lists will help them. Show them slide 7 and check that they understand the three categories.
  • Tell the learners they are going to look at their lists again and:
  1. underline the basic things that everybody needs
  2. circle what they think it’s fair that everybody has
  3. star what they think is extra.
  • Tell them that they can underline, circle or star different things on different lists, but they need to agree. Display slide 8. Highlight the examples:
  1.  I think food and water are basic things that everybody needs.
  2.  I think it’s fair that everybody has a computer.
  3. I think a car is extra. 
  • Then refer the learners back to the agreeing and disagreeing language from the beginning of the lesson. Remind them that if they disagree, they should also say what they think instead and why.
  • If you used breakout rooms before, put the learners back in their original groups of three and monitor as the learners work on their lists. Otherwise, learners can work individually or as a whole class as they did before. 
  • If they are working individually, ask each learner to share a few of their ideas when they’ve finished for others to agree or disagree with.
Project – making the poster (20 minutes)
  • When the learners are ready, tell them that they are now going to make a poster that shows the three categories. Ask them to use the concentric circle design (on slide 7) or they might have their own ideas, for example heart shapes. 
  • They need to write the things they agreed on in the relevant parts and can draw or add pictures to illustrate their poster however they like.


Note: There are lots of tools they could use to create their poster together online, but it could be as simple as a Google Drawing, which has limited functions and is therefore easy to use. If you create blank ones in advance and change the sharing settings, you can simply give the learners the link in the lesson. Alternatively, learners could make a poster each at home.

  • If your learners will work together in breakout rooms to make the poster online, demonstrate the activity first by opening a new file in the tool you are going to use, e.g. a new Google Drawing.    
  • Show them how to write text and how to add shapes and pictures, and how they can arrange these on the canvas.
  • Remind the learners of the ‘breakout room rules’ before you move them there, for example speaking English only, staying on task, etc.
  •  Put the learners in their groups in the breakout rooms and give each group the link to the place where they are going to make their poster by putting it in the chat. 
  • Visit each breakout room as soon as possible to make sure the learners in each group have been able to open the link and are working together on the poster.
  • Monitor the learners during the activity by regularly moving between breakout rooms. If your platform has the function, turn your camera off while you monitor so as to disturb the learners less when you enter a room.
  • Before you bring learners back to the main room, visit each breakout room briefly and announce that they have two more minutes to finish their poster before you will bring them back. 
  • After two minutes, bring all the learners back and screen share each poster. 
  • Ask learners to say what similarities and differences there are and say which pictures and designs they like.


Note: If you don’t have access to breakout rooms, groups could work directly onto a Google drawing and leave each other notes. You could set up the templates beforehand and share the names of group members and the links for each group in the main chat.

  • If your learners are making the poster at home, you could ask them to scan and upload their posters to a shared space and look at them together next time.
Setting homework (5 minutes)

Option 1 – Audio feedback

  • Learners could write or make an audio recording saying what they appreciate having in their lives, e.g. a home, a family, toys, (access to) a device, going to school, etc., either for sharing in the following lesson or just for personal reflection.  
  • You would need to briefly show learners how to use the recording app. E.g. https://www.speakpipe.com/voice-recorder 


Option 2 - Research

  •  Ask learners to find out something about what inequalities in wealth exist in their country. 
  • You could ask them to find just one statistic, or you could ask them to find out their government’s definition of poverty, or they could find out if there are any projects to help poor people – do they think these projects simply support poor people or do they help people to get out of poverty? 
  •  If you would like the learners to search for information in English, give them some key phrases they could use.
  • Otherwise, it’s OK for them to look for the information in their own language, then explain what they found out in the next class in English, where you can help with any language needed.
At the end of the lesson (5 minutes)
 
  • Show slide 9. Praise the learners for their participation and work and tell them you’re looking forward to seeing them again in the next lesson.
  • Make sure they know how to exit the platform and wait until they all leave before leaving yourself.
Further ideas and resources
Downloads
F2F lesson plan241.2 KB
Online lesson plan268.34 KB
Presentation1023.29 KB
Language Level
Primary level 3
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