talking about YOUTH & OLD AGE

A little twist on the subject of YOUTH & OLD AGE. Proceeded by a short vocabulary learning section, there goes a discussion on bucket lists with a real life story that to be honest made the ladies in my class sob a little. Enjoy!

WARM UP

Make a list of words that you can use to describe young people and old people.

IDIOMS

a ripe old age – a very old age

tender age of… – the young age of …

Act your age!– behave more maturely (when someone is acting like a child).

over the hill – another way of saying that someone is old

Use the expressions above to fill in the blanks in the sentences.

a. It’s said that being ___________________ is the end of the world. Well, is it?

b. It’s about time you started to _____________________. You’re over 40 and you’d better take life more seriously.

c. Although one may say that 80 is a ______________________, it doesn’t mean you can’t still be active and healthy.

d. She’s at _________________ 13 so she hates everything around her.

DISCUSSION POINTS

• Are you afraid of becoming old?
• What is the best age to be and why?
• Would you like to be immortal?
• Why do some people age before others?
• Would you like to go back to when you were a child?
• What are the good and bad things about today’s youth?
• What can old people teach to young people?
• What is your ideal old age to live to?
• Some people say that youth is a state of mind, do you agree?

READING

Read the text and match the capitalized words with their synonyms.

extend * fatal * fund * start * strange * with air

Stephen  Sutton was diagnosed with bowel cancer at the age of 15 but this SPREAD ¹(____________) to other parts of his body.

He created a bucket-list of 46 ‘WEIRD ²(____________) and wonderful’ things he wanted to do before he died, SETTING UP ³(____________) a charity website and a blog on Facebook in January last year to keep people up to date with his progress.  He made the list on January 11, 2013, to provide him “with a focus to help come to terms with his INCURABLE ⁴(____________) diagnosis.”

The tasks ranged from learning to juggle, meeting comedian Jimmy Carr, getting a tattoo, and writing a book. Some of his ‘bucket list’ activities were filmed and posted on his Facebook page, including a sky-dive and crowd-surfing on a concert in an INFLATABLE ⁵(____________) dingy.

Before he died, he had achieved an impressive 34 of them including raising £1,000,000 for a teenage cancer TRUST ⁶(____________)!

At this point I'd recommend to make some sentences with the new vocabulary both by the teacher and the students.

VIDEO

Do you know what a BUCKET LIST is? Have you ever considered making one for yourself?

Watch a video and fill in the missing words in the sentences below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYM8H0_fd1g

…The old saying goes, when life gives you ____________ make lemonade.

…A teenager diagnosed with bowel cancer at the age 15 who decided to use the last few years of his life to raise money for other _____________ cancer victims.

…He played the ___________ in front of a vast crowd at Wembley.

…And he got a tattoo: a troll completed with __________ of operations.

…I think that the one thing that Stephen always stresses is: “I may have cancer but cancer doesn’t have _____________”

…In April he thought in his own words that  he was a gone-er and ___________ what he thought was his final picture.

…It’s the legacy that Stephen would have been most ___________ of.

…Cancer sucks but life is ________.

Here are some examples from Stephen’s Bucket List. What are yours? Make a list and discuss it.

1) Charity waxing and head shave.

2) Organize and be part of a flash mob.

3) Go to a carnival in Brazil.

4) Fly somewhere first class.

5) Hug an animal that is bigger than me.

6) Get my name into the Guinness World Book of Records somehow.