Lesson Topics: The Overton Window, political views
Skill Focus: Speaking, Vocabulary, Listening
Approximate Class Time: 1.75 hours
Lesson Plan Download: overton-window-upper-intermediate-012026.docx
Lesson Overview:
- After warm-up questions, students preview 11 vocabulary items from an upcoming video. Students match the key words to their definitions.
- Next, students watch a 2:31-minute video describing The Overton Window, a concept that aims to gauge ideas that are politically acceptable to society. The speech is at a moderate pace, so it should be accessible to B2 students. The video provides several historical (American) examples of how the window of acceptability can shift over time.
- This is followed by comprehension questions..
- Next, students use some of the new vocabulary to complete discussion questions.
- The lesson has one debate prompt on whether politicians can influence the Overton Window.
- In the lesson's main speaking activity, students review a list of 11 political ideas, some of which are radical. They then must place them either inside or outside the Overton Window, and justify their decision. As a second task, students consider what ideas could cause the ideas outside the window of acceptability to become acceptable.
- The lesson's roleplay scenario pits Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis against the Australian medical board in the 1840s. Semmelweis must defend his radical view that doctors should wash their hands in order to save patient lives against a medical board that wants to strip him of his license for proposing the idea.
- As the lesson winds down, students review vocabulary, collocations, and then ask each other some final discussion questions.
UPPER-INTERMEDIATE (B2/C1) Lesson on the Overton Window
Warm Up Questions
- Do you like to follow political events? Why or why not?
- Can you think of an idea that was considered crazy 20 years ago but feels normal today?
- Have you ever changed your opinion because everyone else seemed to change first?
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- Lesson plan written by Matthew Barton of EnglishCurrent.com (copyright). Site members may photocopy and edit the file for their classes. ChatGPT was used to generate vocabulary definitions and answer keys. For questions, contact the author. Permission is not given to rebrand the lesson, redistribute it on another platform, or sell it as part of commercial course curriculum. For questions, contact the author.
Reading passage cloze answers: Tariffs, Anora, Francis, Israel, Elon Musk, Sudan, Nepal, Louvre, Japan, fourth, Swiss
Comprehension Question Answer Key:
- …
- Events or influences that change public opinion, such as media, crises, historical events, or public debate
- It showed that the Overton Window can shift toward less freedom and then shift back when a policy goes too far and people reject it
- They are examples of the Overton Window shifting toward more freedom
- (They can’t cause it to change, according to the video)
- False
- …
Vocabulary Answers: a-detect, b-policy, c-react, d-radical, e-perception, f-defeat, g-potential, h-fed up with, i-risk, j-shift, k-rights
Collocation Answers: 1-b, 2-e, 3-a, 4-d, 5-c
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis