Lesson Planby Alix, Eliane, Michel, Jonas

Lesson Planby Alix, Eliane, Michel, Jonas

Article:

Compulsory Cooking Classes

Topic: Cookery lessons are going to be compulsory in England's secondary

schools.

Level: Intermediate and above

Aims: Listening/Reading skills – Understanding a short news report

Language skills – Vocabulary – cooking

Materials: Video clip (J. Oliver)

Audio file

Sheet with article and vocabulary

Stage / Aim / Procedure / Time

Start

/ Grab attention / Show extract from Jamie Oliver’s Show (choose one from / 2min
Introduction / Introducing topic,
Students talk about their diet and cooking / In class: Who is J. Oliver?
What do you know about him/his show?
In pairs:
What kind of food do you like? What do you usually have for lunch? Can you cook/do you like cooking? / 3min

Transition

/ Tell the class that they are to listen to a recorded article about cooking. / 1min

Listening

/ Students understand the gist of the text / Play audio file once, ask students to listen closely and take notes
Elicit keywords, collect them on blackboard / 5-10min
Listening and fill in gaps / Students understand the whole text, learn new vocabulary / Hand out sheet with gap text1 and vocabulary, give them time to have a look at vocab-list
Play audio file and ask them to read along and fill in the gaps
Correct/collect answers
Check vocabulary / 5-10min
Transition / Lead over to discussion, students see article in larger context / Address class(in pairs?)
What do you think about the article? / 2min
Discussion / …….. / QUESTIONS
● What do you think about the idea of teaching cooking at school? Did you have cooking classes? Do you think boys and girls should have cooking lessons?
● Who teaches/ taught you how to cook?
● Do you think about the English cuisine? Can you compare it to the Swiss?
● What are your food habits? / 15min

Follow-up activity (homework):

Either the teacher hands out an article to read about Jamie Oliver’s school project or the students are asked to find the link between school, cooking and Jamie Oliver themselves (internet research). Furthermore, articles about the success/failure of Jamie Oliver’s school project could be read and discussed.

1 A possible gap text could go as follows:

January, 2008 - Published 16:10 GMT

Compulsory cooking classes

English teenagers are to receive compulsory cooking lessons in schools. The idea is to encourage healthy eating to combat the country's spiralling obesity rate. It's feared that basic cooking and food preparation skills are being lost as parents turn to pre-prepared convenience foods. Jon Devitt reports

Cooking was once ______as an integral part of education in England - even if it was mainly aimed at girls. In recent ______cooking has progressively become a peripheral activity in schools. In many cases the schools themselves have given up cooking meals in kitchens on the premises. But the rising level of obesity, has led to a ______about the food that children are given and the skills they should be taught. Ed Balls is the minister in charge of schools.

"What I want is for young people to be taught how to do basic, simple recipes like a ______, a bolognaise, a simple curry, a stir-fry - which they can use then at home and in their later life, experiment with, discover the ______, having got the basics under control."

The new lessons are due to start in September but some schools without kitchens will be given longer to adapt. There is also likely to be a shortage of teachers with the ______, since the trend has been to teach food technology rather than practical cooking. Also the compulsory lessons for hands on cooking will only be one hour a week for one term. But the well known cookery writer, Pru Leith, believes it will be worth it.

"If we'd done this thirty years ago we might not have the crisis we've got now about obesity and ______knowledge about food and so on. Every child should know how to cook, not just so that they'll be healthy, but because it's a life skill which is a real ______and we deny children that pleasure."

The ______interest in cooking is primarily a response to the level of obesity in Britain which is amongst the highest in Europe, and ______government figures half of all Britons will be obese in 25 years if current trends are not halted.

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