Lesson Topics: gambling, addiction, social media
Skill Focus: Listening, Speaking, Vocabulary
Approximate Class Time: 2 hours
Lesson Plan Download: greyhound-gambling-pain-advanced-102025.docx
- The lesson begins with warm-up questions about gambling and addiction.
- Next, students watch a 4-minute interview between an older man, possibly homeless, and a reporter. The older man shares some wisdom on addiction and gambling. The conversation ends with a discussion on the harms of social media addiction.
- The video is followed by comprehension questions.
- For vocabulary, students match 12 terms from the video to definitions and then use them to create discussion questions to ask a partner.
- The lesson has two debate topics about addiction.
- The lesson has two roleplay scenarios. The first involves a sports club owner who would like his team to have a new sponsor -- a sports betting company. The owner must convince the league regulator to allow the sponsor. The second roleplay is between a TikTok representative and a politician who believes social media needs regulation.
- As something lighter, the next activity has students rank health and harmful behavior on a scale from 1-12.
- Continuing with speaking activities, students then give a short presentation to a group of high schoolers about tips that can help them beat addiction and improve their lives.
- This is followed by four famous quotations about gambling, addiction, and pain.
- As the lesson draws to a close, students review the key vocabulary and collocations. Finally, the lesson ends with some final discussion questions.
ADVANCED(C1/C2) Lesson on Gambling & Addiction: Warm-up Questions
- What type of gambling is popular in your country? Do you participate?
- What addictions (other than drugs) do you think are becoming more common today? Do you have any?
- Have you known anyone with a serious addiction issue?
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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
- Main message: The bearded man believes that pain—not substances or activities—causes addiction. Society should teach empathy and love instead of trying to ban specific behaviors.
- Ban on gambling: He argues that gambling can’t be eliminated; people will simply find other ways to gamble, as it’s part of human nature.
- Jesus’s clothing: He uses it as evidence that gambling has existed since ancient times—people even gambled for Jesus’s clothes, showing it’s timeless.
- Overcoming pain: He says the best cure for pain is love—people need to learn to care for one another as brothers and sisters.
- Biggest barrier: The interviewer says social media and constant distraction prevent young people from learning empathy and real connection.
- Social media addiction: He warns that becoming addicted to platforms like Facebook or TikTok can set people up for lifelong addictive behavior and even lead to drug abuse later.
- True/False: False — he says he has been clean from cocaine for 20 years but still struggles with cigarettes and caffeine.
Vocabulary answer key: 1-susceptible, 2-framework, 3-infecting, 4-trauma, 5-empathetic, 6-artificially, 7-stunted, 8-validation, 9-vilifying, 10-established, 11-strung out, 12-social justice warrior
2020s slang: 1-b, 2-e, 3-c, 5-a
Collocations: 1-a, 2-f, 3-b, 4-e, 5-g, 6-d, 7-c