The Role of Government in Personal Choices

C1 · Advanced57 minConversation StartersLesson 7 of 8 · Outline

Aims

Goal: debate where state authority should end and personal freedom begin — conceding the costs of bad choices, pushing back on slippery slopes, and hedging the genuinely hard cases.

The lesson, stage by stage

  1. Warm up5 min

    Warm-up: The state versus you

    2 warm-up questions

  1. Reading10 min

    Reading: The Nanny State Debate

    Read a 482-word text about The Nanny State Debate

  2. Vocabulary8 min

    Vocabulary: Key Vocabulary

    6 items

  3. Practice7 min

    Practice: Match the Policy to the Philosophy

    Matching exercise, 6 items

  4. Practice7 min

    Practice: Build Government and Freedom Arguments

    Word-ordering exercise, 5 items

  5. Dialogue10 min

    Dialogue: Defending Your Position

    Role-play: You are debating a proposed new government policy that would impose significant taxes on unhealthy food to fund public healthcare. (4 lines)

  6. Discussion10 min

    Discussion: Take the floor

    6 discussion questions

Open the full lesson

The remaining 6 stages of this lesson, with the procedure, the examples and the exercises, are included with Starter, along with the interactive version you can teach from. Lesson 1 of this course is free: the full plan is on this site, and a free account opens it in the interactive player.

Target vocabulary

In a Tuton account these words become your student's vocabulary deck, so they come back in practice between lessons.

paternalismlibertariannudgemandateautonomyslippery slope

This plan comes from the Advanced Debates course in the Tuton library. Browse all free lesson plans.