Lesson Topics: immigration enforcement, breaking the law
Skill Focus: Reading, Speaking, Vocabulary
Approximate Class Time: 1.75 hours
Lesson Plan Download: ice-immigrant-raids-intermediate-lesson-112025.docx
- The lesson begins with warm-up questions about community and the immigration raids in the United States.
- Next, students read a 210-word passage that begins by introducing Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE)'s increased activity in the Trump-era United States. It then describes the response from communities that are trying to record ICE raids and protect immigrants in their neighborhoods.
- For vocabulary, students match 10 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 migration.
- The lesson has one roleplay scenario, set as a lawyer who must convince the judge to let his client, an illegal immigrant, stay in the country.
- Next, stepping away from immigration specifically, students review a list of illegal behavior that citizens might do, either for moral or immoral reasons. They must order the items on the list from acceptable to unacceptable.
- After famous quotations on immigration, students use images and the lesson's vocabulary to create a story related to the themes of the lesson.
- As the lesson draws to a close, students review the key vocabulary and collocations. Finally, the lesson ends with some final discussion questions.
INTERMEDIATE (B1/B2) Lesson on Illegal Immigration
Warm-up Questions
- How would you describe the community where you live?
- When you were in high school, did you do anything to help your community?
- What do you know about the immigration issues in the U.S.?
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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
- Recall & Retell: (Open-ended) Students should summarize that ICE arrests undocumented immigrants, Trump increased its activity, and communities are responding by helping each other.
- Purpose of ICE: To find and remove people living in the U.S. without legal permission.
- True or False: False — ICE existed before Trump’s presidency.
- Human-rights groups’ concern: They worry about court decisions that allow ICE to arrest people based on skin color, accent, or language.
- Community response: Local groups warn families, record ICE activity, and help people contact lawyers.
Vocabulary answer key: 1-i, 2-h, 3-b, 4-e, 5-g, 6-c, 7-a, 8-f, 9-j, 10-d
Collocations: 1-b, 2-e, 3-a, 4-c, 5-d
[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/investigations/trump-mass-deportations-ice-raids-executive-immigration-rcna188620, some ideas paraphrased from higher-level lessons based on this video: https://www.tiktok.com/@thenewsmovement/video/7565904137322253598