Daily Challenges

Curriculum Area

Subject: Modern Foreign Languages (MFL)
Level: GCSE – Advanced (CEFR B2)
Focus: Listening, Reading, and Writing
Theme: Daily Issues (e.g. Traffic & Commuting)

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Lesson Objectives

By the end of this 60-minute lesson, students will be able to:
✅ Understand spoken and written texts about daily problems (such as traffic congestion).
✅ Extract key information and opinions from a listening task.
✅ Develop their writing skills by expressing personal opinions on real-life issues.
✅ Expand their vocabulary relating to transport, travel, and societal challenges.

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Lesson Structure (60 Minutes)

0-10 mins: Warm-up Activity 🚗

Goal: Engage students in the topic in a fun way.

• Think-Pair-Share: Pose the question, "What are the biggest daily frustrations in a city?"
• Give students 1 minute to think individually.
• They then discuss with a partner (2 minutes).
• Whole class shares their ideas (5 minutes).
• Teacher writes key words on the board (e.g. traffic jams, delays, pollution, overcrowding).

Transition: "Let’s listen to a commuter’s experience and see how it compares to yours!"

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10-25 mins: Listening Task 🎧

Goal: Improve students' comprehension skills using an authentic audio recording.

1. Pre-listening Prediction (3 mins)

   • Give students a list of words: motorway, rush hour, gridlock, roadworks, fumes, cycle lanes.
   • They predict the topic of the audio.

2. Listening to a short monologue (5 mins)

   • Play a pre-recorded clip (or read out a short passage) about a person commuting to work experiencing extreme delays.

3. Comprehension Questions (7 mins)

   • Play the audio twice.
   • Students answer:
     1. What mode of transport does the speaker use?
     2. What two problems did the commuter face today?
     3. What solution does the speaker suggest for traffic in the city?
     4. What is the speaker’s tone – frustrated, hopeful, indifferent?

4. Peer Review (5 mins)

   • Students compare answers in pairs before whole-class feedback.

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25-45 mins: Reading Task 📖

Goal: Develop skimming, scanning, and inference skills.

Text: A Newspaper Article – "Life in the Traffic Jam"

(Pre-selected by the teacher or written in target language for differentiation.)

Every morning, thousands of people take to the roads, expecting the worst. Traffic jams stretch for miles, and tempers run high. Drivers honk their horns in frustration, while cyclists weave through tiny gaps in the congestion. Government officials have promised better public transport systems, but many commuters believe this change cannot come soon enough. With rising pollution, longer commuting hours, and little improvement in road conditions, the future of city travel seems bleak.

Reading Comprehension Questions:

1. According to the text, how do cyclists react to heavy traffic?
2. What promise have officials made?
3. How does the writer describe the impact of commuting on city life?
4. Find a synonym for "congestion" in the text.

Pair Discussion (5 mins):

• Do students agree with the article? Have they experienced similar situations?

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45-60 mins: Writing Task ✍️

Goal: Encourage students to express ideas creatively.

Task: You are a journalist writing a short opinion piece: "How can we solve traffic issues in major UK cities?"

• Word limit: 100-150 words.
• Structure:
  • Introduce the issue.
  • Detail one major problem.
  • Suggest a solution.
  • Give a closing opinion.

📌 Challenge: Students must use at least two new words from the lesson!

Peer Feedback (Final 5 minutes)

• Swap texts with a partner for constructive feedback.
• Highlight one strong point and one possible improvement.

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Differentiation & Adaptation

• Stronger Students: Asked to include complex structures (e.g. subjunctive, conditional).
• Weaker Students: Given sentence starters and vocabulary banks.
• Visual Learners: Show real pictures of city traffic situations.
• Auditory Learners: Allow more time for discussion before writing.

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Final Reflection & Exit Ticket (1 min)

💭 "What was the most interesting thing you learned about today?"
(Students write their answer on a sticky note before leaving.)

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Assessment & Progress Check

🔹 Informal assessment through listening answers and reading comprehension.
🔹 Written work assessed on clarity, structure, and vocabulary usage.
🔹 Peer feedback encourages self-correction and consistency in language use.

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✨ This lesson engages students with real-life problems, making language learning relevant and fun! 🚦