Lesson Topics: behavioral genetics, nature vs. nurture, twins
Skill Focus: Reading, Listening, Speaking, Vocabulary
Approximate Class Time: 1.75 hours
Lesson Plan Download: nature-nurture-twins-upper-intermediate-052025.docx
- Note to Educators: The roleplay in this lesson involves interviewing a potential sperm donor.
- The lesson begins with warm-up questions about personality and shared family traits.
- Next, students read a short 150-word passage containing two discussion questions. The passage summarizes Bouchard et al.'s research on twins from 1990. In short, the research suggests that genetics plays a stronger role than most believe in forming personality traits, intelligence, and interests.
- The passage is followed by a short, light-hearted YouTube video of two twins who found each other later in life. Surprisingly, their lives are eerily similar, supporting Bouchard's findings.
- The passage is followed by comprehension questions.
- Next, students match 11 vocabulary items from both the passage and video to their corresponding definitions.
- After vocabulary matching, students form discussion questions with the target vocabulary.
- The lesson has two debate prompts about leadership. This is followed by a ranking activity where students must rank the importance of a variety of factors on personal development (factors include parenting, social media, education, etc)
- The roleplay scenario involves a married couple who want to have a child with the help of a sperm donor. The couple must interview the donor to infer his intelligence, values, and personality traits. This should be a fun activity for adult students.
- Next, students review famous quotations related to nature and nurture.
- Finally, students review vocabulary and collocations before discussing some final discussion questions.
UPPER-INTERMEDIATE (B2/C1) Lesson on Nature vs. Nurture
Warm-up-Questions
- What defines who you are? Is it your personality, appearance, or something else?
- How would you describe your personality?
- How are you similar to and different from your family members?
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This lesson plan was created by Matthew Barton of EnglishCurrent.com (copyright). Site members may photocopy and edit the file for their classes. Permission is not given to rebrand the lesson, redistribute it on another platform, or sell it as part of commercial course curriculum. ChatGPT was used to generate answer keys and some famous quotations. For questions, contact the author.
Comprehension Question Answer Key
- ...
- They believed all behavior comes from a person’s environment.
- Genetics has a stronger effect on personality and intelligence than environment.
- Because it suggests that parents have less control over how their children turn out.
- It supports the findings — the twins were very similar even though they were raised apart.
- A firefighter saw Jerry and noticed he looked like Mark.
- Bald heads, the way they walked, laughed, and held their beer.
- ...
Vocabulary: 1-c, 2-g, 3-f, 4-i, 5-e, 6-h, 7-b, 8-a, 9-j, 10-d
Collocations: 1-c, 2-f, 3-g, 4-a, 5-b, 6-e, 7-d
[1] Sources: Famous Studies in Psychology by Roger R. Hock, https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/sources-human-psychological-differences-minnesota-study-twins-reared-apart-1990-thomas-j