UNIT 5: MIND TRICKS

TOPIC: Psychology and the functioning of the brain. TIMING: 7 Sessions

Summary: This unit is divided in three blocks: 1) I’m okay as I am, explores the concept of abandoning the comfort zone; in 2) What a player!, the focus is on the tricks our brain plays on us;
and in 3) Shoppology the central point lays on how companies use psychology to control how people behave.
OBJECTIVES ASSESSMENT
Reading Comprehension Assessment Criteria
To understand the main ideas and specific information in articles about the comfort zone, shopping and consumers’ attitudes. Stated in Currículum LOMCE Catalunya Nivell
To understand the main ideas and specific information in short bibliographies. Avançat C1 - Anglès. [Pending Publication]
To understand the main ideas and processes about why do people see ghosts.
Listening Comprehension Assessment Procedures and Instruments
To understand the main ideas and details from an interview with the man who bought the rights of the first Harry Potter book. Self-assessment: analysis of communicative
To understand optical illusions and the reasons why they happen. input activities using self-assessment
To understand the main ideas and details about why people see faces in inanimate objects. questionnaire (reading and listening
To understand the main ideas, details and consequences in an excerpt of a documentary about the paradigm of choice. comprehension); analysis of written product
To recognise intonation in weak forms and words ending in –ate. (summary and graph interpretation) using self-
Spoken Production and Interaction assessment questionnaire; end unit self-
To take part in argumentative interactions about how businesses and companies attempt to control consumer’s behaviour, respecting assessment checklist.
the social conventions. Peer-assessment: analysis of written
To initiate and maintain conversations about the choice paradigm, respecting social conventions. production (graph interpretation) using a peer
To deliver a short presentation about celebrities who changed their careers, using the appropriate discursive strategies. response form.
To take part in conversations to solve brain puzzles, respecting the social conventions. Teacher-led assessment: information from
Written Production and Interaction self-assessment questionnaires (all skills);
To co-produce an argumentative essay about Millennials changing careers later in life, complying with the appropriate conventions and
observation and eavesdropping using a
format of this text type.
classroom observation numerical rating
To write a news report complying with the appropriate conventions and format of this text type.
checklist and anecdotal records (all skills);
To write a forum contribution suggesting solutions not to overbuy, adapting to the communicative situation.
analysis of written products (written mediation
To write a description and interpretation of a graph about consumer habits by generation, adapting lexis and structures to the topic.
and argumentative essay) using analytical
Mediation
rubrics.
Spoken Written
- To express a personal response to Martin Whatson’s To select and adapt the main ideas from a video to write a formal letter to the
graffiti ‘Behind the curtain’ and to ‘Infinity Mirrored CEO of a big supermarket chain claiming they should have a space to
Room’ by Yayoi Kusama. promote local and small businesses.
CONTENTS
Strategies
Language Use Strategies: listening and reading for gist and for detail; skimming; scanning; formulation of hypothesis and their verification or reformulation; guessing the meaning of words
using previous knowledge or the textual context; knowledge of oral and written conventions; simplification of a denser text; selection of relevant ideas; text interpretation; transmission of the

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main points; data interpretation and drawing conclusions from visual inputs (graphs); clarification and exemplification of ideas (debate); conceding or partially agreeing; being emphatic,
steering a debate; referring back and disputing; presenting evidences. Language Learning Strategies: hypothesis formulation referred to meaning (listening and reading comprehension);
reasoning and verification of the formulated hypothesis (all skills); acknowledgment of usage differences between the oral and the written code (written mediation, writing – graph interpretation
and argumentative essay, speaking – debate, oral mediation – work of art interpretation); using self-assessment and peer-assessment as a tool to improve learning; accepting partial or
superficial understanding of a communicative situation; awareness of the role of classmates as a learning aid (pair/group work).
Text Types Text Organisation
Written Spoken • Contextual Adequacy: identifying interlocutors, their mutual relations and the communicative
Receptive: Receptive:
intentions; identifying the format of different text types, identifying the register; selection of
Articles, a report and a medical Interview, excerpts from documentaries, reports, talk,
main ideas.
brochure. interview.
• Coherence and Cohesion: Selection of appropriate morphosyntactic structures and lexicon
Productive: Productive:
in order to avoid lengthy sentences and/or repetitive texts (relative clauses with complex
Notes taking, argumentative Debate, presentations, problem solving tasks, casual
relative pronouns); Specific resources of the oral discourse (headers, tails and
essay and graph interpretation. conversations and informal discussions.
phraseology).
Functions Notions
Affirming, negating, dissenting, classifying, comparing, annotating, giving, offering, requesting information, Lexical elements: feelings and the comfort zone,
expressing doubt and certainty, describing states and present situation; defending (2); Expressing interest or evaluative(1); sequence, anteriority, posterity, simultaneity and imminence (3);
lack of it, approval, disapproval (3); Expressing sympathy or antipathy (4); requesting, expressing and aspect and modality(5).
arguing an opinion or disbelief with different degree of firmness, expressing agreement or disagreement,
objecting, replicating, formulating conjectures and hypothesis, predicting, supposing (5); asking for and
giving advise and advising against, recommending, informing, proposing, suggesting (7).
Macro-functions: 1) Socialisation; 2) Information; 3) Pleasure; 4) Feelings, attitudes, moods; 5) Opinions, 1) Entities; 2) Space; 3) Time; 4) Mode; 5) Estates, events, actions, processes
beliefs, hypothesis; 6) Intention, decision, volition; 7) Advice, offers; 8) Suasion and activities; 6) Logical relations between estates, processes and activities.
Sociocultural Competence Sociolinguistic Competence
- Seasonal affective disorder – SAD. - Refusal of suggestions by means of prefacing face-threatening utterances with apologies or
- Consumers’ mentality. explanations (I understand what you are saying, but…)
- Companies’ strategies to affect consumers’ behaviour.
Vocabulary & Lexis Morphosyntax Orthography Phonology
- Idiomatic expressions about getting out of - Future structures and futures in the past. - The hyphen. - Pronunciation of weak forms.
the comfort zone. - The passive and passive reporting structures. - -ate words
- Compound Adjectives. - Relative clauses with complex relative pronouns
- Word formation (prefixes and suffixes).
- Idioms about feelings.
- Reporting verbs.

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 ACTIVITIES BY LANGUAGE ACTIVITY

Reading Listening Linguistic Competence

- Quiz about the comfort zone. - Video (personal account): ‘The - Vocabulary – Idiomatic Expressions about
- Article about leaving the comfort zone from [Outcomes]. Choose the paragraph that best man who discovered Harry Potter’ getting out of the comfort zone. Match idioms
summarises the text and complete the sentence choosing the correct option. from BBC News. Multiple-choice with definitions and fill-in the gaps.
- Jigsaw reading with short biographies about celebrities changing careers from [English Hub]. Qs. - Vocabulary) – Compound Adjectives (late-
- Article explaining why people see ghosts from [www.psychologytoday.com]. Multiple-choice Qs. - Videos (Reports): 1) video ‘Why night shifts, thick skinned,…) from [English
- Article about the multi-sensory marketing from [Keynote]. Qs about the text and about the author’s Your Brain Thinks These Hub]. Match both parts and fill in the gaps.
attitudes. Strawberries Are Red’ from Wired; - Vocabulary – Word Formation (suffixes and
- Article about the change in consumer mentality from [Pioneer]. Multiple-choice Qs. 2) ‘Try this bizarre audio illusion!’ prefixes) from [English Hub]. Complete table
- Medical brochure about SAD from [the NHS]. Match the concepts with definitions. from BBC; 3) ‘Does Colour of and replace phrase for a word with prefix or
Food Affect Taste?’ from DDW suffix.
Mediation The Color House. Discuss about - Vocabulary - Idioms about feelings. Match
Written
how the brain tricks us. idioms with feelings and fill in the gaps.
- Note taking (interlinguistic mediation) – Video (Report) ‘‘¿Eres un maximizador o un optimizador?’
- Video (Report): ‘Why you're - Vocabulary - Reporting Verbs from [English
by Elsa Punset. From a list of statements, classify the content of the talk into the categories of seeing a face in this purse’ from Hub]. Replace underlined words with a
maximiser or satisficer with the help of the notes. Vox. Multiple choice Qs. reporting verb and complete sentences.
- Video (Report): ‘The hidden war over grocery shelf space’ from Vox. With the notes write a letter to
- Video (Excerpt from a - Grammar – Future structures and future in
the CEO of a big supermarket chain claiming they should have a space to promote local and small documentary) ‘The Jam Study - the past from [English Hub]. Decide what
businesses. BBC Supermarket Shopping future the sentences refer to, fill in the gaps
Spoken Secrets Clip’ from SYZYGY and rewrite sentences.
- React to Martin Whatson’s graffiti ‘Behind the curtain’
Group. Multiple-choice Qs. - Grammar - The Passive and Passive
- React to ‘Infinity Mirrored Room—The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away’ by Yayoi Kusama.
- Video (Talk): ‘How to Win with Reporting structures from [English Hub].
Game Theory & Defeat Smart Complete the rule, fill in the gaps and write
Speaking
Opponents from Big Think. sentences.
- Game – Pictionary with idiomatic expressions about getting out of the comfort zone.
Multiple choice Qs. - Grammar – Relative Clauses with complex
- Conversation about how to react in different situations.
- Audio: an interview with a relative pronouns from [English Hub]. Fill in
- Debate: ‘Is having too much choice is always bad?’
psychologist about emotional the gaps and produce sentences verbally.
- Debate: ‘Are consumers changing or are companies making us change?’
intelligence. Choose the correct - Phonology – Pronunciation of weak forms
- Conversation to solve a dilemma from [English Hub] and other brain freezers.
option to complete the sentence. [Life]. Circle the weak forms listen and check.
- Phonology - -ate words from [English Hub].
Writing
Classify words into categories (/ət/ and /eɪt/).
- Graph interpretation from the ‘Annual Consumer Spending, by Generation’ from [www.business2community.com].
- Orthography – The hyphen from [Eats,
- Argumentative Essay about Millennials changing careers later in life. – A forum contribution overbuying.
shoots and leaves].

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