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P H O TO C O P I A B L E

Teacher’s Notes

World Carfree Day

by Magdalena Kondro

Type of activity: individual and pair work
Focus: making suggestions, vocabulary connected

with the environment and transportation; listening

and speaking skills
Level: pre-intermediate – upper-intermediate;

upper secondary
Time: 45 minutes
Preparation: Make a copy of the Student’s Worksheet

for each student.

Procedure:
1. Tell students about the last time you travelled by

car as a driver or a passenger. Mention where you

were going and why. Say whether you could have

used a different, more eco-friendly transportation

in that situation or not. Then ask students to work

in groups of 3–4 and to talk about their last

experience of travelling by car. Find out how many

students had the option of using a different form

of transport on that journey but did not choose it.

2. Explain that in today’s lesson students are going

to talk about reducing the use of cars. Ask students

to work in the same groups as in stage 1 and to

come up with a list of problems generated by the

use of cars. They can think of environmental,

social, health and any other kinds of problems.

Give students 5 minutes for this activity. The

group with the longest list reads out the problems

they have identifi ed. The other groups listen and

add any problems that have not been mentioned.

3. Hand out the copies of the Student’s Worksheet.

Explain that the fi rst task includes 6 problems

connected with cars, but some letters are missing.

Ask students to try to complete the words. Check

the answers with the whole class. Then tell

students to write their own defi nitions of the

problems and then ask them to compare these in

pairs. Elicit the defi nitions proposed by different

students. With a lower level, instead of having

the class write defi nitions, read the suggested

defi nitions below for students to match with the

correct terms.

Suggested answers:

1. petroleum dependency – being dependent on

petroleum as a fuel, 2. greenhouse emissions –

greenhouse gases that trap heat in the

atmosphere and contribute to the greenhouse

effect, 3. air pollution –pollution of the

atmosphere which occurs when the air contains

gases, fumes or odours in harmful amounts,

4. noise pollution – harmful levels of noise,

5. traffi c congestion - a condition when cars

can scarcely move because there are too many

of them on a road, 6. automobile crashes –

violent collisions of one or more cars with each

other or with a different obstacle.

4. Students can now read task 2 and decide how they

would reduce the use of cars in their country.

Encourage them to consider each point on the list

and make notes about their ideas. They should

make sure the suggestions take into account the

environment, the people as well as the economy

of their country and are not harmful to any of

those. You may need to pre-teach the following

terms: carpooling (an arrangement between two

or more people to make a regular journey in a

single car to reduce costs, typically with each

person taking turns to be the driver) and

commuting (traveling some distance between

one’s home and the workplace on a regular

basis).

5. In pairs, students present their suggestions to

each other, using the expressions in the box.

Review or introduce the structures following the

verbs suggest, propose, recommend before

students begin their task.

6. Elicit suggestions for each point from different

students. Ask the class which of the proposed

solutions are the easiest to introduce and which

are improbable.

Extension:
Students choose one of the suggestions made for

reducing the use of cars and write a for and against

essay on this topic, e.g. Should petrol and diesel

cars be banned from all cities?