Lesson plan about gender stereotypes and equality

Use this lesson plan for learners aged 13-17 and adult students to look at the theme of gender stereotypes and equality.

Introduction

This lesson plan is adapted from the British Council publication Integrating Global Issues in the Creative English Language Classroom, which offers classroom activities that focus on the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This lesson plan focuses on Goal 5: Achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls and is based on an activity from chapter 6 of the publication. In it, learners will reflect on gender stereotypes, discuss human rights, review vocabulary related to rights and look at a timeline of women's rights in the UK. They will also develop their speaking skills in a discussion activity and have the option to research their own timeline for another country.

This lesson has been adapted from the lesson 'Taking liberties' in the publication 'Integrating global issues in the creative English language classroom' (Chapter 6 – Activity 4)

Learning outcomes

Reflect on gender stereotypes
Read about human rights
Practise speaking in a discussion about human rights
Review vocabulary related to rights and freedoms
Practise giving opinions

Age and level

Aged 13–17 at CEFR level B1+

Time

65 minutes. This could be done over two lessons.

Materials

The materials can be downloaded below in PDF and PPTX format. This can be done as a print-free lesson.

Lesson plan for remote teaching contexts
Lesson plan for face-to-face classroom teaching
Presentation
Cut-ups
Student worksheets 1 & 2

Task 1: Lead-in (10 minutes)

Without telling learners what the topic of the lesson is, tell them that they are going to do a creative activity in which they will invent four characters. You want them to invent and write down a name, and two or three adjectives to describe the person and to write a brief description of what they look like (hair, eyes, body shape). You will just tell them what the person does for a job, and they must invent the rest. Give them one to two minutes to make notes for each character.

Fighter pilot
Primary school teacher
Nurse
Scientist

Ask learners to compare notes in pairs. Monitor and correct any vocabulary errors. Then ask learners which characters they made male and which female. Why did they make those choices?
Explain that this activity is taken from an experiment done with primary school students for a project called 'Redraw the Balance'. There is a video you can show at the end of class if students are interested. In the experiment, primary students drew people doing jobs like firefighter, surgeon and fighter pilot almost exclusively as men. Gender stereotypes are defined between five and seven years of age. Ask if your learners showed similar bias. Explain that in this lesson, learners will think about gender equality.

Task 2: Think, Pair, Share activity (15 minutes)

Tell learners to look at the first discussion questions on the worksheet, or display slide 2 of the presentation. Check understanding and help with any vocabulary problems.
Learners should work individually to choose the three that are the most important for them and think of reasons why.
Then put learners into pairs and ask them to compare which rights they feel are most important – encourage them to discuss why.
Then as a whole group nominate several pairs to summarize their discussion.

Task 3: Pair discussion (10 minutes)

In pairs ask learners to discuss the two questions on the worksheet, or display slide 3. Allow 5 minutes for discussion, then elicit feedback from a few pairs to the whole class. Encourage them to reflect on the reason for their stance.

Task 4: Vocabulary (10 minutes)

Show slide 4 or write the following on the board:

A. healthcare	1. the right to vote in elections
B. property	2. the boss of a company
C. suffrage	3. services for giving medical help to people
D. earnings law	4. objects or buildings that belong to someone
E. CEO	5. periods of time when you don't work
F. time off work	6. pay rules made by the government.

Ask learners to work individually to match the vocabulary and its definition.
Answers: A3, B4, C1, D6, E2, F5

Task 5: Timeline (10 minutes)

There are two options for this activity. Put learners into pairs or small groups. Option 1: Cut up the strips, ensuring there is a set for each group. Option 2: Display slide 5.
For Option 1: Ask the students to put the papers in the order they think that women in the UK obtained each right. Give them the first one to help. The focus here is not on the students getting the exact order but rather on them talking about the rights and speculating when they were obtained.
For Option 2: Write the following dates on the board and ask students in groups to match each right to the date the right was obtained in the UK. Encourage and monitor discussion. DATES: 1867, 1870, 1880, 1926, 1928, 1948, 1975, 1982, 1997, 2013, 2015
Check answers together, encouraging discussion. You can display slide 6.
Are learners surprised by anything? Which rights do women have in their country? Are there any they don't have?
Note: You can adapt this activity by choosing five or six rights to work with.

Task 6: Discussion (15 minutes)

Put learners into small groups of three or four and ask them to discuss the questions on the worksheet, or display slide 7. Alternatively, you can choose the questions that you think will be most suitable/interesting for your learners and dictate them. Set a time limit of seven minutes for discussion.
Monitor the discussions, making a note of any errors or good language to focus on at the end of the discussion. Then you can re-group learners to report back on what they discussed with different students, or do this as a whole class.

Extension 1 (10 minutes)

Write some of the sentences you heard while monitoring on the board. Use a mixture of good and incorrect language.
Ask learners as a whole group which sentences are good and which need editing. Then guide them to correct the sentences with language errors.

Extension 2 (10 minutes) OPTIONAL

Show learners the recording of the stereotype experiment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qv8VZVP5csA
Check if anything surprised them. Did the children show any similar bias to their own class?

Homework

As a homework activity, you could ask learners to research a similar timeline of women's rights (or other human rights) for their own country or a country they know well. They could report back in the following class or make a poster detailing the most important rights gained.

References