Garbage Interview
Summary
Students will appreciate how much garbage is
thrown away on a daily basis on both a personal and national
level. First students identify different types of garbage and
then conduct group interviews to find out how much garbage each
student in the class throws away.
Level: *
Grammar
How many (easily changed to the passive voice:,
"are used", "are bought" etc.)
Materials
One copy of the worksheet for each student.
Procedure
- Give each student a worksheet. Ask
students to circle the garbage. Check the answers.
- Model the interview questions and practice
the structure together with the class.
- Tell students that we want to find out
"HOW MANY" the whole class is throwing
away. Put the students into groups of five or six. Groups
tally their totals in order to find a total for the
entire class. One student starts by asking the person
beside him/her one question and the discussion moves
around the group in this manner (i.e. do a round of Q.1,
then a round of Q.2). This may take a while because
students will have to add up a lot of figures.
(Variation: have each student write his or her name and
totals on the board.)
- Each group reports its totals to the
class. Make a class total on the board.
- Now that you have the class total on the
board, the next step is for students to guess the totals
for one day in the whole of JAPAN!!
- Ask groups to decide on the answers. Which
group has the closest answer?
In One Day In Japan
- 55, 000, 000 waribashi are thrown away,
- 69, 000, 000 kg of paper is used and half is recycled,
- 32, 000, 000 aluminum cans are consumed,
- 55, 000, 000 steel cans are consumed
(Based on statistics from 1992-93)
What can we do to make less garbage??? Can your students think
of any ideas?
Note
If you can keep the results of the class
interview, they would be useful later in the year when you are
teaching comparative adjectives. (MORE MOST etc.)
Acknowledgments
Yokohama Activity Bank, April 1997.
