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!
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.
