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ENGLISH FOR TEENAGERS · GENERAL ISSUES · INTERMEDIATE (B1-B2)

VOLUNTEERING

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1 Warm up
Look at the three images. What can you see?

picture 1 picture 2 picture 3

1. How are all three images connected to the image and title at the top of the page?
2. Have you ever worked as a volunteer? What did you do? Would you like to be a volunteer?
3. Is volunteering popular where you live? What kinds of things do people volunteer to do? What
would you volunteer to do?

Now, talk to a classmate and write down three advantages and disadvantages connected to volunteering.

advantages disadvantages

1. 1.

2. 2.

3. 3.

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2 Focus on vocabulary

Part A: Match each word or phrase to its correct definition.

1. voluntary (adj.) a. a place that offers protection to those who have been badly
treated
2. grown-up (n) b. the illegal employment of children in industry

3. self-confidence (n) c. having or showing very strong feelings

4. unpaid (adj.) d. an informal word for adult

5. passionate (adj.) e. belief in your ability to do things well

6. shelter (n) f. the ability to guide and influence others

7. construction (n) g. the protection of plants, animals and natural areas

8. leadership (n) h. not receiving money for something

9. conservation (n) i. something done by choice without being paid

10. child labour (n) j. activities involved in making buildings

Part B: Write the correct word or phrase from Part A in each sentence

1. I think it’s better to get a dog from an animal than buy one from a pet shop.

2. She’s about climate change and really wants to make a difference to the world.

3. He doesn’t have much , so I want to tell him how brilliant he is!

4. I’d like to do some work with older people who are living alone and need help.

5. You need to have great skills if you want to be a manager or a politician.

6. Did you know that some things we wear have been made by kids? must be stopped!

7. There are lots of jobs in the industry when the economy is doing well.

8. Most people can’t afford to do an job even if it’s for a good cause.

9. There is a project to protect wild animals in my community that I’d like to get
involved in.

10. You don’t have to wait until you’re a to make a difference!

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3 Pronunciation tip: use the schwa a lot!

Part A: The schwa /@@/ is the most common sound in the English language and is often used when
vowels are not stressed. Look at these examples below:

Now, look at these words from the vocabulary exercise above and underline the schwa sounds in
each word. Remember that the part of the word that is stressed will not use a schwa. There is more
than one example in some of the words.

Part C: Discuss these questions with a classmate and use the phrase in bold in your answer.

1. Should we get new pets from a pet shop or an animal shelter?

2. Which topics are you really passionate about?
3. Should everyone do some voluntary work every year?
4. What leadership skills do you need to manage a conservation project?

4 Reading: skimming

You are going to read an article called "Ever tried volunteering?". Tick ✓the types of voluntary work
you think will be mentioned in the article. Read the article and check your predictions.

teaching helping people who live on the street

working with animals working on projects connected to the

environment
helping poor people who don’t have enough helping older people with the shopping
food

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Ever tried volunteering?

What are the benefits for you and those you help?

1. Do you do the same thing every Saturday? Get report that their self-confidence is higher, they have
up late, do a bit of homework, play some games, improved leadership skills, and their group of friends
watch a few episodes of your favourite TV series? is much bigger than before volunteering.
It sounds nice, but it can get boring, right? It might
4. So, what could you do? There are many ways to
be time to try something different. More and more
volunteer. Think about what you like as well as what
teenagers are choosing to do voluntary work in their
you would like to try. If you love the countryside,
free time, and while they help their communities and
try a local environmental group. If you live in a
their planet, volunteering can teach young people
city, you could join a food bank, teaching project or
important life skills, too.
community garden. Many teens happily spend many
2. Teenagers sometimes have a Saturday job or hours helping at an animal shelter near their home.
something similar, but in general, paid work is done
by grown-ups, and in some countries, it’s illegal 5. Volunteering can also help you find what things you
to do paid work until you are 16 or over. So how can change in the world. Many of us get very sad
can you get those skills that will be very important or angry when we read about people, animals or the
when you start work as a young adult? Employers planet suffering, but don’t know what to do to change
and universities look for people who can work in a it. Volunteering with organisations which are trying
team, can solve problems and are passionate about to make a difference can help you see how you can
what they do and what they believe in. They want make a difference. You don’t have to be an adult to do
young people who know how to arrive on time and this. The international organisation, Free the Children
complete tasks, too. Doing unpaid work can help fights against child labour. Craig Kielburger was 12
with all of this. when he founded it with some school friends in 1995.

3. You don’t need to be an expert. The organisation, 6. And don’t forget that you already have lots of
often a charity or NGO, will teach you everything knowledge, skills and energy that could be really
you need to carry out what they need you to do. In useful to the team you volunteer with. Organisations
fact, many volunteers get the opportunities to learn report that teenagers bring new ideas and help them
how to do things like construction or conservation, do things that would be impossible without young
which help them when they have their own home volunteers. You can get a lot out of volunteering, and
and garden. Many teenagers offer to teach and say you have a lot to give, too. So why not give it a try?
that they have found the job they wanted to do all
Sources: Independent, The Conversation
their lives. More importantly, most young volunteers

Glossary
NGO: non-governmental organisations that are usually independent charities
A food bank: a place where people in need can go to get free food

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5 Reading comprehension
Read the text again and decide if the following statements are true (T), false (F), or not given (NG).
Talk to a classmate and give reasons for your answers.

1. According to the article, more teenagers prefer to stay at home in their free time than help others.

2. Volunteering is not just good for the people you help.

3. Some volunteers may discover their future career paths.

4. You probably need to travel if you want to work with animals.

5. Only grown-ups can make a real difference.

6. Many voluntary organisations would close if they didn’t have young volunteers.

Now, in pairs, look back at the advantages and disadvantages you wrote down at the beginning of
the lesson. Have you changed your mind about anything? Can you add any more advantages or
disadvantages to your list?

6 Focus on language: prefixes un-

The prefix un- usually means not, so unpaid means the opposite of paid. Look at this example sentence:

Your teacher is going to describe six people. Your task is to write an adjective that uses the prefix un-
to describe each person.

1. John is .

2. Sandra is .

3. Jack is .

4. Emma was .

5. Hamza is .

6. Claudia is .

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7 Listening for general understanding

You are about to hear four teenagers who do different types of voluntary work. Look at the forms
then listen and complete them with the missing information.

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8 Vocabulary/optional task
Look at these sentences from what you just heard. What do you think the words in bold mean?

1. I work at a community animal shelter. I work with the horses and donkeys there.

a. an animal that is similar to a horse and was used to carry lots of things in the past

b. an animal that is similar to horse with black and white stripes

2. Many of the animals were abandoned by their owners.

a. left because it’s unwanted or not needed

b. sold very cheaply

3. Many of the animals were rescued because they were treated badly by their owners.

a. sent into a dangerous situation

b. saved from a dangerous situation

4. Some of them have little vegetable gardens next to the park, and I go and help them with some
digging.
a. the activity of putting something in the ground so it will grow

b. the activity of making a hole in the ground with your hands or a garden tool

5. Plogging is a strange word for jogging and picking up litter.

a. things that make a place look untidy and are not where they should be

b. pieces of rubbish that are left on the ground outside and not put in the bin

6. Our group, our school’s parent association and some people from the houses next to the beach
all wrote to the local TV station and newspaper.
a. an official group that has joined together for a particular reason

b. an organisation that is owned by the government

7. I actually volunteer online, because I live in a really rural area – our closest neighbours are over a
kilometre away!
a. connected with the countryside

b. connected with the city

8. So, about once a month, I give an online lesson in something I have learned or know. It can be
anything from measurements to division. In which problem do you need to know measurements
and in which problem do you need to know division?
a. If Candela had 700 sweets, then gave 175 of them to her friends, and then put the rest in five
bags, how many sweets would she have in each bag?
b. If a room is six metres long and five metres wide, how big is the room in square metres?

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9 Speaking: roleplay

Imagine that you work for an organisation that is looking for new volunteers. Read your role card and
think about how you could persuade your classmates to do some voluntary work for you.

You also want to do some voluntary work. You have 6 free hours a week. Listen to three volunteering
possibilities and decide how you will use your free hours.

10 Homework/class project

You have decided that doing some voluntary work is the right thing to do.

You like the idea of helping others and you also know that volunteering will give you some experience
and skills for the future. The problem is you’re not sure where to volunteer and what to do. You need
to do some research. Use these questions to help you.

What is the What does the How old do I What do Why do I want
name of the organisation do? need to be to volunteers do? to volunteer
organisation? volunteer? here?

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11 Supplementary writing

Write an email to a charity or NGO to tell them that you would be interested in working for them as
a volunteer. Use the phrases below in your letter.

• Best wishes,
• I’m interested in ...
• I would love to work for your organisation because ...
• I’m available ...
• I look forward to hearing from you.
• I’m writing to ...
• Dear ...

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Transcripts

7. Listening for general understanding

Markus (USA): I work at a community animal shelter. I work with the horses and donkeys there.
Many of the animals were abandoned by their owners and rescued because they
were treated badly. I go for an hour every morning to clean and feed them and on
Sunday I give free horse riding classes to local children. I love being with the animals
and the children. Some of the kids are getting better from being very sick, so it’s
fantastic to see them happy. It can be difficult to get up so early, but I think moving
my body gives me more energy later in the day. It has helped me to think about my
future, too. I definitely want to work outside and with animals when I’m older.

Katya (UK): My school had a volunteering week, where lots of organisations came and talked to
us about what they did and how we could help. I learned that lots of older people in
my area feel lonely and don’t have many friends and sometimes feel too scared to go
out on their own. So, I joined Helping Hand. I go to a member’s home or for a walk
in the local park. We play chess or meet others for a card game or just take a walk
around. Some of them have little vegetable gardens, and I go and help them with
some digging. I thought spending time with the older generation might be boring,
but I have learned so much from the people I have spent time with. It’s a lot of fun
and I feel good doing it, too.

Giovanni (UK): I saw that an area of my local beach was getting really polluted and I wanted to do
something about it so I set up a plogging group. Plogging is a strange word for jogging
and picking up litter. We run every Saturday and pick up rubbish as we go, finishing
our run at the recycling centre. The real benefits were how healthy I was getting
and how beautiful the beach looked. Then something big happened. We invited our
science teacher to tell us about the river and the plant life in it. She brought some
tests, and we found some chemical pollution in the river! Our group and our school’s
parent association wrote to the local newspaper. They reported on it and the factory
stopped the pollution and said sorry! We had a party on the beach to celebrate. (We
cleaned up after ourselves, of course).

Robyn (UK): I volunteer online because I live in a rural area – our closest neighbours are over a
kilometre away! I love maths so I joined an online maths group and then I saw they
were looking for some volunteers to do some teaching and I thought, why not? So,
about once a month I give an online lesson in something I have learned. It can be
anything from measurements to division. People join the lessons from all over the
world and I love connecting with them and working together to solve things. I also
like that I can make a difference. Last month I suggested a maths competition and
the organisation loved the idea. They’ve asked me to run the competition! It’s a bit
scary but I think it’s going to be great.

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Key

1. Warm up

10 mins.
Let students look at the images and discuss question one. Feedback and check understanding of volunteer and
volunteering. Do question two whole class eliciting ideas and then students do question three in pairs. Accept all
answers at this stage.

2. Focus on vocabulary

Part A
5 mins.
Students work in pairs and match the vocabulary to their definitions. As you monitor, focus on pronunciation as
well as meaning. Check answers with the whole class.

1. → i. 2. → d. 3. → e. 4. → h. 5. → c.
6. → a. 7. → j. 8. → f. 9. → g. 10. → b.
Part B
5 mins.
Ask students to read all of the sentences before they decide which word to choose from Part A. Ask students to
check answers in pairs.

1. shelter 2. passionate 3. self-confidence 4. voluntary 5. leadership

6. Child labour 7. construction 8. unpaid 9. conservation 10. grown-up

3. Pronunciation tip: use the schwa a lot!

Part A
5 mins.
Pronunciation tip: Explain the schwa sound and drill the sound. You could take a look at this one-minute video
for extra support: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXS3IcMbzXI
Look at the example words together and drill so students are using the schwa sound.

Part B
Ask students to look at the vocabulary and pronounce the words together in pairs deciding where the schwa
sounds are. Tell students that they can underline more than one letter and that one word has two examples.
Remind students that they can see the stress on each word in the exercise they did earlier. Drill the words in
feedback.
Answers:
construction; passionate; voluntary; leadership; conservation

Part C
5 mins.

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Tell students to focus on saying the words in bold in their answers. Students could talk to a different classmate.
Including the phrases in bold in answers encourages students to give more comprehensive answers and use
appropriate collocations. Question four may be more challenging and you could do it with the whole class if
necessary.

4. Reading: skimming

5 mins.
Do this whole class and ask students to tick the information they think will be mentioned. Set a strict time limit
(2 mins) for them to scan the article. Check predictions with the whole class.

✓ teaching ✓ working with animals

✓ working on projects connected to the environment ✓ helping poor people who don’t have enough food
Sources:
https://theconversation.com/4-ways-that-volunteering-can-be-good-for-you-163336
https://theconversation.com/how-college-towns-could-benefit-more-from-throngs-of-student-volunteers-109862

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/new-ps6m-fund-will-help-the-young-to-volunteer-8906371.html

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/teenage-volunteers-show-true-grit-at-the-national-citizen-service-
8793020.html

5. Reading comprehension

5 mins.
These questions check more detailed understanding of the text. Point out that there are six questions and six
paragraphs. Encourage students to underline pieces of the text that give them the answer and to explain their
answers in pairs before conducting whole class feedback.

1. NG: More teenagers are doing voluntary work, but the article doesn’t say whether more stay at home or
volunteer.
2. T: "Doing unpaid work can help with all of this."
3. T: "Many teenagers offer to teach and say that they have found the job they wanted to do all their lives."
4. F: "Many teens happily spend many hours helping at an animal shelter near their home."
5. F: "You don’t have to be an adult to do this."
6. NG: The article states that doing some things would be impossible without young volunteers but not that they
would close.
5 mins.
Encourage students to look back at what they wrote in the warm up (ex.3) and ask them to see if their answers
have changed. Encourage more detailed answers after having read the article. Students should work in small
groups and speak to different classmates to increase their lists.

6. Focus on language: prefixes un-

5 mins.
Check that students understand what a prefix is. Look at the example together and explain that here unpaid means
work that is not paid. Ask students to reformulate the sentence to something like "Doing work that is not paid ..."
Tell students that you are going to describe six people and they have to write down one adjective with un-. Here
is what you could say:

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1) John wasn’t happy when he saw his exam result.

2) I don’t know why Sandra is so mean all the time. She could try to be more friendly.
3) Jack wasn’t feeling well yesterday and he’s sick at home today.
4) It wasn’t Emma’s lucky day. She missed the bus, was late for school and was given extra homework.
5)Hamza’s bedroom is always messy. If he was tidier, he’d be able to find socks in the morning.
6) Claudia isn’t very reliable. She’s usually late and often forgets that we were going out.

Adjectives

1. unhappy 2. unfriendly 3. unwell

4. unlucky 5. untidy 6. unreliable

7. Listening for general understanding

5-10 mins.
Before you listen, ask students to imagine they are one of the four teenage volunteers. In pairs, students invent a
volunteer profile for them. Who are they? Where do they live? Where do they volunteer? What do they do and
why do they do it? They can share their ideas.
Play the listening once and ask students to complete the forms. (Listen again if needed). Check answers. Play
the listening a second time and then discuss what they would rather do (this gives students a chance to listen and
respond without additional tasks).
Markus
Volunteers at: animal shelter
Duties: clean and feed animals; give free horse riding lessons to local children
Reasons for volunteering: because he loves animals and children; it gives him energy
Katya
Volunteers at: old people’s homes
Duties: play card games or chess with older people or go with them for a walk, or help them in the garden
Reasons for volunteering: it makes her feel good helping older people who are lonely or scared of going out by
themselves
Giovanni
Volunteers at: in his local area
Duties: picks up rubbish/litter and runs around his local area
Reasons for volunteering: wants to keep his local area clean/doesn’t want the beach and river area to be polluted
Robyn
Volunteers: online (from home)
Duties: teaches maths to people from around the world
Reasons for volunteering: loves connecting with new people and working together to solve things. She also likes
that she can make a difference

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8. Vocabulary/optional task

5 mins.
If you are short of time you could skip this section or give it as homework.

This exercise gives students a chance to analyse some of the languages they heard and learn some new vocabulary.
In pairs, students look at the sentences from the listening and decide the better/most likely definition. Point out
that question 8 is a bit different. Encourage students to discuss the words and meanings and justify their choices.
Note: Plogging is a relatively new activity, from Sweden, based around awareness of plastic pollution. The activity
involves jogging and picking up rubbish on the way. Plogging is a combination of the words jogging and plocka
which is a Swedish verb meaning to pick up.

1. a. 2. a. 3. b. 4. b. 5. b. 6. a. 7. a. 8. a.
Note: division (105); 8b. measurements (30m2).

9. Speaking: roleplay

10-15 mins.
This activity could easily be extended if you have time. Students work in groups of four.
Give each student one of the roles above or cut them up and give them out. Give students time to read their roles,
ask about vocabulary and think of the benefits of working as a volunteer for their organisation.
Tell students they all have six volunteer hours per week, and they have to choose how many hours to give to each
organisation.
Each organiser speaks in turn and tries to recruit volunteers.
After each student has spoken all of them decide how many hours they will use at each organisation. Ask which
organisation got the most hours in each group and elicit reasons.
As students talk, you could take notes of nice examples of collocation and language as well as errors in pronunciation
and use to work into a feedback stage.

10. Homework/class project

30 mins.
Tell students their mission is to find some voluntary work. They have to research and decide what type of work
would be the best for them. Show students the website below where lots of volunteering options are put together.
The research is best done at home. Ask them to look at all of the options and then choose up to three websites
to look at in more detail. Students can then present their findings in groups in the following class.
Website for student research: https://www.dofe.org/thelatest/volunteering-ideas/

11. Supplementary writing

30-40 mins,
at home or in the class. This could follow directly from the roleplay or be done after the homework project.
Ask students to think about the types of voluntary work they have seen and discussed in class. Tell them they are
going to write an email to one organisation to express an interest in volunteering for them. They could choose an
organisation from the roleplay, from the project, or from further research. Tell students to look at the phrases and
they can discuss how to use them in their letter and whether they would go near the beginning, in the middle or

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near the end of their letter. You could pin the letters around the room and students could read them as employers
and decide whether to give them the job or not.

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