Change Agent: Engage Readers with Advocacy Articles Written by Adult Students

This lesson plan is just one example of the many things that you can do with these articles. I chose the Taking Action at Work Lesson Packet (#10) from the free lesson packets page. (See the How to instructions.) This packet contains articles on how workers can advocate for themselves at their jobs. I will use the 2nd article (page 3 of the packet) entitled "Advocate for What You Want" by adult student Carolyn Allen. This would be appropriate for a high beginning or intermediate low ESL class.

As a warm-up, I would do a class mixer in which the students would ask the other students in class 3 questions:

1. What's something bad that happened at your work?

2. Did you do something about it?

3. If yes, what?  If no, why not?

(Note: for lower levels, you can provide sentence starters for their answers, like "I couldn't___" or "We weren't permitted to ____" or "The _____ didn't work," etc.  For #3: "I tried to ___", "I asked ______", "I reported it to_____", etc.  It also would be a good idea to model a few possible answers first.)

When the students finish, ask volunteers to share some of their answers. Then, take a poll. "How many students reported that they had a problem at work?" "How many of those students tried to do something about it?" "How many students reported that they didn't have a problem at work?" You can have a whole class discussion based on the results.

Explain that the students will read about a student that had a problem at work and what she did about the problem.

Begin by going over some of the vocabulary that you think your students may struggle with. Here's a list that I made using ChatGPT:

 

 And a worksheet to go along with it:

 

 

The students will do the vocabulary exercises.

Once they finish that, they should read the article*. You could do it as a whole group, in small groups, or individually depending on your preferences. Afterwards, ask if there are any questions and ask some comprehension questions to check for understanding.

*You could print copies of the article, link it to your LMS, create a QR code for the pdf that students could access on their phones, etc.

Students can now do the activity under the article. One way to do this would be to have them fill out the table individually first. For students who haven't had a job, ask them to fill it out about housing problems.

Next, do a jigsaw feedback activity. Group students into small groups. One student can read one of their problems to the group along with their answers to 'What can you say' and 'What can you do'? The other students can say whether they think those are good ideas or if they have any advice to improve on those ideas. The next student shares one, and they continue around the group several times until everyone has shared all of their answers.

There are so many options for expanding on this activity, but one thing that I like to do is to let students research workers' rights.

Group research activity + jigsaw sharing: (Since this is a lower-level ESL class, I make this pretty simple).

I take my students to the computer lab (or they could easily do this on their phones) and direct them the OSHA's Workers Rights and Protections  web page.

I then teach them how to translate the page into their first language (instructions below*).

Now, I group the students into small groups and tell them to find the 2 most interesting facts on the page. They can be about anything, like a worker's basic right or how to file a complaint. Anything on the page or on a linked page.

They can all translate their screens to their first language and follow links if they so choose. They share what they think is the most ineresting fact with the group. The group must vote on the most interesting 2. If someone disagrees, they must look for another fact. Once everyone agrees on the 2 most interesting facts, they translate the page back to English and copy the facts in their notebooks. (Bonus - if possible, have the students practice explaining the facts in simple English in case the other students don't understand the fact.)

Once all the groups have their facts, regroup them so each new group has a mix of students from the original groups. One person share their fact with the group. If anyone is confused, the student should try to explain in simple English. (You can help if needed). Then, everyone discusses why this fact is important. Then, the next student shares. (It's okay if 2 people have the same fact. The objective here is for your students to learn their rights as workers.) Continue around the group until everyone has shared.

Follow-up activity: Ask the students if they have any questions about anything that they read on the site and answer to the best of your ability.

*How to translate any web page into another language (for Chrome browsers):

• Go to the web page.
• Right click on any blank space on the page.
• On the pop-up menu, click "Translate to English".
• A little box will open. Click on the 3 dots on the right.
• Click "Choose another language".
• Click on the arrow next to the displayed language.
• Scroll down to your language. (It's in alphabetical order.)
• Click your language.
• Click the 'Translate' button. Viola!! It's in your language.
• Follow the steps again to translate the page back to English.