UNIT 3

STRIKING A BALANCE 

EATING HABITS: WHAT SHAPES THEM? 

In this unit, we will be dealing with our eating habits and the impact they have on our health. It goes without saying that they are shaped by a complex interplay of cultural, social, psychological and physiological factors. Besides, culture and family traditions also play a major role. Let's spark some heated discussion by addressing the key question: What shapes our eating habits?

SHOULD JUNK FOOD BE TAXED?

What if shaping our eating habits did not depend on the major factors above? Are there other factors that influence us or are we responsible for our own food choices? Some experts argue that the government can sway our decisions by implementing measures that can affect both food production and food waste.

With this idea in mind, I spurred the debate in class asking students: Should junk food be taxed? Would food taxing have a positive or a negative impact on our eating habits? First, we considered some of the advantages and disadvantages and then the debate was on! 

Also, I provided my students with some useful expressions to debate and the cards below did the trick! I used two coloured plastic envelopes for my students to sort the cards out. Each envelope was marked with the right card: Advantages or disadvantages of junk food taking. They helped them incorporate the new vocabulary and support their ideas with solid arguments!

should_junk_food_be_banned by Paula Gómez Cernadas

SICKO: AN AMERICAN DOCUMENTARY

Sicko is a 2007 American documentary by Michael Moore. It investigates health care in the USA and has been highly criticised for its negative portrayal of the American health insurance system. Even so, it explores health organization in countries such as Cuba, France, Canada or the UK and has helped us learn a lot about health and care in English. 

DESCRIBING VISUAL INFORMATION: HOW TO SAY NUMBERS AND PERCENTAGES

In the mediation tasks of the C1 exam (both oral and written ones), you might be asked to give a short descriptive speech or write a short descriptive report based on visual information or data. This visual information is most commonly presented as line and bar graphs, pie charts or tables. You might be asked to describe and analyse the information provided by selecting and reporting the main features.

In the presentation below, I will be discussing some of the key factors you need to consider when dealing with such a task. First of all, you will learn how to look for the most obvious information to find out what the numbers on the graph are referring to.