Upper-Intermediate Reading Task

High School Student Studying in Library

I recently made this reading lesson for an upper-intermediate group of Chinese students. I think it’s quite challenging, and could also serve well in an advanced class. The topic is one that I thought was very interesting for them – the idea of a school with no teachers. In China, this is entirely unthinkable! The teacher still is incredibly important here, and anyone who’s tried teaching the Western teaching methodology in the East knows the difficulty of encouraging peer review and so forth.

The article comes from the BBC, although I have edited it so that it is more suitable, and also so that it doesn’t take up so much space on the page. It is still very long, and will take students an hour or so to complete.

There is a response task at the end to get the students’ opinions. You could also just have them write notes and then discuss it, if you prefer. Of course, there are numerous possibilities for follow-up activities, such as designing the perfect school, listing the pros and cons of peer-teaching, and discussing the necessity of teachers in modern society.

As always, feel free to download and adept this lesson for your class. I would appreciate a share on social media if you do.

David S Wills

I am a writer, editor, and educator. I have written various books on mid-20th century American writers and a few on grammar and IELTS preparation. I have been in the education field since 2008 and have worked in various countries. I started this website to share some ideas and resources to help my fellow teachers.