World Peace English Lesson – High Beginner/Advanced (A2-C2)
What is peace?
How do you define it? Try to define it without referring to its opposite. What is peace if not an absence of something bad? But surely, peace deserves a space, an identity of its own! Today, we are going to think about the concept of peace.
Peace is an absence of conflict, violence and war, obviously.
Cambridge Dictionary defines peace as “freedom from war and violence, especially when people live and work together happily without disagreements”.
So peace is just the lack of War and Conflict?
Peace is a positive force. It is where good, happy lives are lead.
Let’s focus on peace in this lesson. What does it mean, and what does it mean to us? What do we do to promote it in ourselves, our communities, and globally? In what ways are we working for and against our own best interests?
Warm Up Questions
1.) What does peace mean to you?
2.) Why don’t we have global peace?
3.) Describe a time in your life when you felt deeply at peace.
4.) What can we do, to make the world a more peaceful place?
5.) Do you think global peace is possible?
Warm Ups
All levels (A2-C2)
Peace maze – What sentence is written in the maze?
Tongue-twisters – Pronunciation practice
Idioms and expressions – Add the correct verbs to the expressions, and try using them in your own sentences.
Vocabulary
Ceasefire = an immediate agreement to stop committing violence and engage in dialogue and negotiation.
Low Intermediate/Advanced (B1-C2)
Basic Vocabulary for Peace – Quizzes
High Intermediate/Advanced (B2-C2)
Trust, confidence, conscious, conscientious?
Learn the difference between these commonly confused words.
High Intermediate/Advanced (B2-C2)
Formal, Normal, Informal Game
More vocabulary:
equanimity = calmness and balance
absence = state of not being present
lack = the absence of something that is needed
make peace = come to terms with
Grammar
High Beginner/Intermediate (A2-B1)
Phrasal verbs with STAND
Intermediate (B1-B2)
Adverbs of Frequency Quiz – Put the words in order to make sentences about peace.
High Intermediate/Advanced (B2-C2)
Affixes -ship and -hood – Learn about these suffixes, try the quiz, and take turns asking and answering conversation questions with abstract nouns.
Reading and Writing
Reading
How to Promote Peace (B2-C2)
Writing
Option 1 – Letter to the President
How to write a letter to the President of the United States
Option 2 – Essay
1.) Select an essay topic from the list or think of your own.
2.) Write a 250 word essay summarizing your thoughts on the topic.
a. What steps can we take to promote world peace? (B1+)
b. Who gains from war? (B1+)
c. Living involves violence. Life feeds on life. What’s the relationship between the violence inherent in Nature and peace? (B2+)
d. World Peace Declared! Imagine that world peace has been declared. Write a news article about it. (B2+)
e. Explore the charts and graphs in OurWorldInData, and select one to write about.
Review how to talk about charts and graphs. (C1-C2)
Conversation
World Peace Board Game – Select your level. (A2-C2)
Conversation Questions – B1+
Additional Conversation Questions
1.) How do you negotiate peace in your daily live?
2.) How so you strike the right balance between keeping the peace, and setting and enforcing limits?
3.) In a hierarchy of need, where do you rank peace?
4.) A peaceful response isn’t always appropriate. Describe a situation in which someone might use violence to defend themselves.
5.) Do you feel like you live in a peaceful community? It what ways do you find it peaceful, and in what ways do you find it otherwise?
Class Resources
Sustaining Peace Project – Explore the interactive map of where peace exists.
IFNOTNOW– A Jewish organization against the oppression of Palestinian people.
