Learning Activity 1
75 minutes (individual work and pair work)
(a) Teachers can set the scene by introducing the problem of world hunger to students by showing some pictures of starving people. Such pictures can be found by doing an image search on any online search engine.
Students then brainstorm the causes and impact of hunger.
(b) Students will work on their own to write down whether they agree (A) or disagree (D) with the given statements.
(c) In pairs, students read the article and answer the comprehension questions. Teachers can then ask students to compare their prediction in (b) with what the passage describes. Students should be helped to understand the article if necessary.
Answers (the paragraph where each answer can be found or derived is given in brackets):
1-b (para. 1) 2-c (para. 3) 3-d (para. 4) 4-d (para. 7) 5-a (para. 10)
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For less advanced students:
You may choose to give students two options instead of four for each question to reduce the challenge, or give students the numbers of the paragraphs where answers can be found to narrow their search.
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For less advanced students:
You can form students into groups so that some groups will focus on brainstorming the causes while others will brainstorm the impact.
(d) Teachers refer students to the article on hunger.
In pairs, students identify the causes and effects described in the article and complete the table. Students should be reminded to write only the key words, not complete sentences.
Suggested answers:
Causes of Hunger Impact of Hunger
e.g. Uneven distribution of food e.g. Malnutrition
Natural disasters Death
War Reduced mental capacity
Environmental degradation Reduced productivity
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For less advanced students:
You can also give students the following pre-reading vocabulary exercise as scaffolding.
Match the words on the left with the meanings on the right.
1. starvation • • (a) extreme hunger for a long time 2. famine • • (b) inequality of income and earnings
between the rich and the poor 3. wealth gap • • (c) a health problem caused by having
too little of the right type of food necessary for growth and good health 4. drought • • (d) disappearance of plant and topsoil of
land, making it desert-like
5. degradation • • (e) worsening
6. desertification • • (f) hunger on a large scale due to shortage of food
7. malnutrition • • (g) shortage of water for a long time
Answers:
1-a 2-f 3-b 4-g 5-e 6-d 7-c
Learning Activity 2 80 minutes (group work)
(a) Teachers explain what a graphic organiser is and how it can help to organise ideas. A fishbone diagram (also known as an Ishikawa diagram) and a spider map are two examples of graphic organisers that are commonly used to present cause and effect.
The following websites contain further information about the diagrams.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishikawa_diagram
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/graphicorganizers/spider/
Possible diagrams:
Fishbone diagram on the causes of hunger
Spider map on the effects of hunger
Economic loss --- People lack the energy to take
part in economic activities --- People unable to work
when sick Reduced
productivity
Reduced mental capacity --- Limited ability to learn
---- High drop-out rates --- High illiteracy rates
--- More difficult for country to develop Malnutrition
Illnesses --- Death ---
Hunger Soil erosion --- Desertification --- È
Loss of farmland ---- È
Floods --- Droughts ---
Typhoons ---
Decrease in food production ---
È
High prices ----of food
Ç War
Destroyed farmland --- Natural
disasters
Uneven distribution of food
Hunger Environmental
degradation È
Industrial waste pollutes --- farmland and rivers È
(b) In groups, students brainstorm the causes and effects of a social issue they are interested in. Teachers can emphasise that students should not aim at listing ALL the causes and effects. The ideas they generate in this learning activity will probably prepare them for the research project they will work on later in this module, but at this stage, students should focus on how to organise their ideas with a fishbone diagram or spider map.
Alternatively, this learning activity can be set as homework.
Learning Activity 3
75 minutes (individual work / pair work)
Before students work on the questions, teachers go over the example sentences on consumerism with students and highlight the words and phrases used to describe causes and effects.
(a) Answers:
1. Due to 2. has led to
(b) Students study the article on hunger to identify useful expressions for describing causes and impact. To give variety to interaction patterns, teachers can assign different pairs to work on different paragraphs and cross-group them afterwards when they share their answers.
Answers:
With today’s high technology in food production, it is a surprise to many people that ending hunger is still one of the major tasks for the United Nations and many other non-government organisations. The word ‘hunger’, when used in our daily lives, simply refers to our desire for food; but to 854 million people (Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations, 2006), hunger is something that could lead to death.
Hunger is not an isolated problem. It is often the consequence of a combination of many other issues in our society.
The root of hunger is not that we do not have enough food in today’s world, but that we do not distribute it evenly enough. According to the FAO (2000), while the richest 20%
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For less advanced students:
You can draw a fishbone diagram and a spider map on the board or on an OHT.
Demonstrate how to elicit the points from the article to complete one part of the diagram.
Each group of students is then assigned to read only one part of the article. They complete only the corresponding branch of the diagram.
Environmental pollution is another major contributing factor to the decrease in food production and hence hunger. If industrial development is not well controlled, the waste created can pollute farmland and rivers. In some cases, this brings about soil erosion and desertification. A likely effect of the loss of farmland is that prices of food are driven so high that most people are unable to get enough food.
What are the effects of hunger that lasts a long period of time?
Food provides our body with nutrients, which are necessary for growth and health. A lack of nutrients, which is sometimes known as malnutrition, naturally results in illnesses and sometimes even death. ‘Feeding Minds, Fighting Hunger’ (2006) points out that,
‘malnutrition in the form of deficiencies of essential vitamins and minerals continues to cause severe illness or death in millions of people worldwide.’
Children’s mental development can also be severely affected. The intelligence of hungry children is generally lower. These children’s ability to learn is limited, and as a result, schools’ drop-out rates are high in countries with serious hunger problems. This often leads to high illiteracy rates, making it even more difficult for these countries to develop.
It is obvious that when people do not have enough food, they lack the energy to take part in economic activities. When people get sick because of malnutrition, they are unable to work. In short, a lack of food contributes to lower productivity, and economic loss is an unavoidable result.
As seen from the above, hunger is seriously damaging to the affected people and countries. As individuals, we can of course reduce food wastage by ordering only what we can eat. But more importantly, increased international efforts in providing financial aid and technological assistance are needed to put an end to hunger.
(c) Students read the expressions given and decide whether they are for describing causes or effects.
Answers:
a. …due to…(C) b. …give rise to…(E)
c. One of the main causes is…(C) d. A serious effect of…is…(E) e. …is a contributing factor to…(C) f. …lead to…(E)
g. …owing to…(C) h. …bring about…(E)
i. The reason why…is that…(C) j. …because…(C)
k. …result in…(E) l. As a result,…(E)
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For more advanced students:
You may give them the following phrases to categorise in addition to the ones above:
For describing causes:
…stems from…
The root of…is…
An important cause is…
…can be attributed to…
For describing effects:
The most likely effects of…are…
Consequently,
(d) Suggested answers:
e.g. Since human beings are social by nature, we all feel the need to establish relationships with others. Good relationships with family and friends (1) result in / lead to / bring about / give rise to a sense of security. Sometimes, we may follow others and do things we would not usually do (2) because of / as a result of our wish to be accepted. This (3) results in / leads to / brings about / creates / gives rise to a tendency to think or act like other members of a group. Children and teenagers are in the stage of forming their own identity. (4) Therefore / As a result / Consequently, they feel a particularly strong need to conform to the group they socialise with. In other words, their behaviour and minds are often influenced by peer pressure. This (5) is the reason why / explains why most teenagers dress in the same way, listen to the same type of music, use the same language, and worse, sometimes do the same bad deeds. In other words, peer pressure (6) is one of the main causes of / is a contributing factor to teenage crime.
Teachers should remind students that there may be more than one possible answer for each blank. If time allows, students can be encouraged to put down all the possibilities and compare the differences.
Additional practice with the use of words or phrases useful for describing causes and effects can be done with the second and third paragraphs of the article on Internet addiction (Supplementary Materials 3a-b).
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For less advanced students:
For each blank, you can provide two options for students to choose from, such as the ones below:
(1) bring about / are caused by (2) since / because of
(3) leads to / comes from (4) As a result / In addition (5) explains why / is because
(6) is one of the main causes of / is due to Learning Activity 4
40 minutes (group work)
To encourage use of the expressions students have learnt and to encourage participation, teachers can cut up and distribute the following expression cards (one per student). Each student must use the given expression and make at least one sentence in their group’s writing.