The environment seems to be one of English exam designers’ favourite topics. They take any opportunity they have to include a reading, listening or other exam task that informs us about recycling, plastic usage or wind power. Trinity even went so far as to include both recycling and national environmental concerns as separate topic areas in the ISE II exam. It’s no stranger to Cambridge exams either.
Environment is an especially popular topic at B2 level. At this level, students should be able to discuss more complex and less personal topics. They are also expected to know lexis related to such topics.
Unfortunately, the environment doesn’t seem to be quite as popular with my students. In fact, the younger the students, the faster the eye rolls occur. I think they are oversaturated with this topic in school and even in popular media, so they often see it as a boring lecture telling them what they need to do to fix the world.
However, there are ways to make the topic more interesting. One functional area that lends itself to the environment topic is agreeing and disagreeing. As exam teachers, we know that our students need to be using this language, and using it well. In the FCE or CAE, there’s a decent chance of having to discuss it in Parts 3 and 4 of the speaking exam. In ISE II, national environmental concerns is one of the 5 potential topics for the conversation task.
The Materials
With this activity, use the agree / disagree phrases to discuss the environment, forcing your students to take roles. This encourages them to use all the phrases available and nobody has to feel bad about their real opinions.
This task can be extended with a pronunciation phase focussed on intonation following the first activity.
EXAM PART: Speaking / Conversation Task
EXAM SKILLS: Discussing unfamiliar topics, expressing agreement, interactive communication
TOPIC: The environment
TIME: 30 minutes
PREPARATION: One copy of the worksheet per student
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