TED TALK: CAN YOU REALLY TELL IF A KID IS LYING?
November 2020 – Here’s a lesson idea based on Kang Lee’s TED Talk from February 2016 about if we are good at telling when a child is lying. The lesson is aimed at B1plus level (or higher) and includes listening and vocabulary training. The main target is to start and finish the lesson with an open conversation about the topic.
LEAD-IN:
Start the activity with a short conversation discussing some of these questions:
– Is lying a good or bad thing to do?
– Do you remember lying to your parents when you were a child?
– Were you caught?
MAIN PART:
Give a copy of the STUDENT’S VERSION of the worksheet to your students and ask them to do the first exercise: to decide with word/expression on the left does not collocate with the word/expression on the right.
Check answers.
Ask your students the question in Task 2: What emotions might one experience when lying?
Ask your students to watch the video and check their answers to the question in Task 2 with the ones Kang Lee mentions in his talk:
After checking the answers to Task 2, make the students read the questions in Task 3 and show them the video again (remember, if you put on subtitles in English, it becomes a reading task). Students should answer to the questions while watching the video the second time.
Check their answers.
WIND-DOWN:
Finally, initiate a class discussion with the questions in Task 4. If you ask your students to do the task in pairs or small groups, monitor them.
At the end, give content and language feedback to them.
P.S. You can also finish the lesson with a game by telling three statements about yourself (two should be true, one should be a lie): ask the students to understand based on your non-verbal signals which of the statements is false. You should talk about things, your students don’t know about you: a film you recently saw and liked, a new dish you tasted and tried, a person you have just met, etc. Then put them in three-some groups and make them repeat it by taking turns. If you still have time, switch groups and let them repeat the task again (this time, they will tell their lies the second time, maybe they get better after some rehearsal and the game might get harder).
You can find the TEACHER’S VERSION of the worksheet here.
WHERE WOULD YOU LIKE TO GO NOW?
