LESSON PLAN: MEDITATION ON THE A30

(A poem by John Betjeman)

Level: Intermediate +

Lesson Description
Rhyming words race (introduce some of the rhymes of the poem.)
Students race in groups to produce a list of words in one minute that rhyme with: life; this;
me; fast and will. The longest list wins each time.

Life This Me Fast Will

Wife
Knife
Etc.

Create interest and pre-teach vocabulary.

Give students in pairs different lines from the poem. They then speculate on the poems theme.
Elicit and write the ideas on the whiteboard. Use this as an opportunity to pre-teach the
vocabulary.

To read for gist

Students get the gapped poem and check their predictions. Feedback.

To focus on rhymes and collocations.

Cloze development. Students fill in the gaps (rhymes and collocations) in pairs. They then
check their ideas with the pairs next to them. Feedback.
Answers: wife, looks, loses, past, way, on, kiss, knee, way, kill.

To help students with their understanding and to have FUN.

Students, in groups, get one verse of the poem and have to act it out as it is read by another
student. Give them plenty of time to prepare what they are going to do.

To change the pace and deepen the students understanding of the poem
In pairs the students discuss who was to blame for the accident: husband or wife.

To practise language of disagreeing and have FUN

Elicit and feed in language of disagreeing.

In a circle the students debate whose fault it was. Only two people speak – one blames the
wife the other blames the husband. When the teacher claps their hands the next two speak.

© Christopher Briggs and Macmillan Publisherrs Ltd 2004

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