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Teenage health: Warm up

Ask the students to discuss in pairs what it means to be healthy and then make a list of important factors which contribute to being healthy.

14.1 Teenage health issues

Text 14.1.1 Text messaging to improve teen health

Ask the students to discuss in pairs how often they use text messaging and for what purposes. Collect a selection of their answers. Read and discuss the article.

Text 14.1.2 Healthy eating for teens

Ask students in small groups to:

• Define healthy eating and;

• Explain whether or not they are healthy eaters.

Ask why they think it may be difficult for people to be consistently healthy eaters.

Have the students share and discuss their answers before reading and discussing the text.

14.2 Young people and sport

Text 14.2.1 A third of primary school children ‘cannot swim’

Put the students in groups to discuss:

• How important it is to be able to swim;

• Whether or not they can swim – if they can swim, how and when did they learn; if they cannot swim, why didn’t they ever learn?

After reading the headline of the article to the class ask for their reactions to it.

Then have the students read the text in pairs, collect new unknown vocabulary, and then discuss the content and language as a class before doing the general comprehension questions.

Text 14.2.2 Too much sport ‘may be bad for teens’ health’

Ask the students to discuss (with a new partner):

• If they regularly take part in school sports and, if so, why;

• If not, why not;

• Can too much sport be bad for you?

Share the answers before reading the text individually and filling in the missing words listed in the text handling exercise. Read the text together, check the missing vocabulary and discuss any new words and the content.

TEACHER’S GUIDE

Teenage health14

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14 Teenage health

Text 14.2.3 Why team sports really do improve grades: Link between self-esteem and better performance in the classroom

Ask the students to individually write down their answers to these questions:

• What kind of sports they enjoy most;

• Which they prefer – team sports or individual sports;

• What they think are the advantages of playing team sports;

• What they think are the advantages of playing individual sports;

• If they think a student’s character plays a role in which kind of sports they prefer.

Share the answers before reading and discussing the article together.

14.3 What really matters in life

Tell the students that the next article is written by a well-known English journalist who writes a weekly column for The Times, as well as other articles. Having been a very active athlete, she is now confined to a wheelchair and dependent on assistance for many basic things.

Read the article together and then ask the students for their reactions to it.

Exam practice

The exam-practice tasks suggested in this chapter relate to the written activities that the students must complete as part of their final examinations. All three tasks could be attempted by SL or HL students for practice purposes. These could be completed in class or as homework.

Suggestions for further readingThe Fault in our Stars by John Green

Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli

Answers

Text 14.1.1

General comprehension

1 answers will vary

2 Older people find this difficult to understand as they are simply a different generation who did not grow up with technology.

3 They discovered that teenagers were open to texts but did not like being told what to do.

4 The unpopular phrases were ‘you should’, ‘always’, and ‘never’.

5 They enjoyed texts directed at their age group and those that were interactive and fun.

6 Answers will vary, but the main idea is that they wanted to know what health means to kids, and what is palatable for them.

7 The project was called Stealth Health – stealth implies doing something secretly and quietly and the scientists were using technology in this way.

8 In their teens, kids start making decisions for themselves.

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14Teenage health

Text handling

1 magnitude

2 innate

3 nutrition

4 likewise

5 specifically

6 trivia

7 inundated

8 supplement

9 palatable

10 promote

Grammar in context

answers will vary

Text 14.1.2

General comprehension

1 Replace the tips:

[1] c

[2] d

[3] i

[4] e

[5] f

[6] a

[7] j

[8] g

[9] k

[10] b

[11] h

2 A healthy diet can help you look and feel great.

3 answers will vary

4 Answers will vary – but a ‘fad diet’ is one that is currently very popular, but is not necessarily healthy.

5 Eating breakfast helps people control their weight.

6 Some snack foods are high in saturated fat and sugar, causing you to become overweight or to have high cholesterol.

7 Those containing high levels of saturated fat and sugar.

8 answers will vary

9 answers will vary

Text handling

1 D

2 E

3 F

4 A

5 G

6 C

7 B

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14 Teenage health

Grammar in context (modal verbs)

Modal verbs in the text include:

Introduction:

• ‘Ahealthydietcan help’• ‘Youcould be putting your health and growth at risk’

Paragraph 1:

• ‘becauseyoucan miss out on essential nutrients’• ‘researchshowsthateatingbreakfastcan actually help’

Paragraph 2:

• ‘It’snotashardasitmight sound’

Paragraph 3:

• ‘Toomuchsaturatedfatcan also cause high cholesterol’

Paragraph 5:

• ‘youmay need more iron in your diet’

Paragraph 6:

• ‘mostofusshould be eating more of them’

Paragraph 8:

• ‘noteatingabalanceddietcan stop you getting enough of the calories and other important nutrients your body needs’

• ‘Thiscan lead to weight loss’• ‘Beingunderweightcan cause health problems’• ‘YourGPcan help with this’

Paragraph 9:

• ‘eatingtoomanycaloriescan lead to weight gain’• ‘Yourbodymassindex(BMI)can tell you whether you are a healthy weight’

Paragraph 10:

• ‘Itcan be tempting to follow the latest fad diet’• ‘butcan be dull and hard to stick to’• ‘yourGPcan help’

Paragraph 11:

• ‘Thiscan be unhealthy’• ‘Low-carbdietscan be high in saturated fat’• ‘Eatingtoomuchsaturatedfatcan cause high cholesterol, which can lead to an increased risk of developing heart

disease’

Grammar in context (gerund clauses)

answers will vary

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14Teenage health

Text 14.2.1

General comprehension

1 A decline in swimming and enhanced life-saving lessons in many schools, plus a lack of encouragement from parents.

2 David Sparkes is the chief executive of the Amateur Swimming Association.

3 It seems sport has been downgraded in schools and more emphasis put on passing English and Maths exams.

4 It is the only subject which can save lives.

5 Children in poor areas are less likely to be able to swim.

6 Parents could be responsible for helping their children learn to swim.

7 Swimming is considered an essential skill as it can save lives.

8 Fewer children are now able to swim.

9 Children should be taught by schools or parents.

10 answers will vary

Text handling

1 Match the sentences:

I C

II E

III A

IV B

V G

VI H

VII F

VIII D

2 Match the meanings:

I E

II H

III G

IV K

V L

VI J

VII B

VIII C

Grammar in context

Sentences in the text that use ‘able to/unable to’:

• ‘Insomeareas,almostthree-quartersofchildrenareunable to complete a length of a standard pool’

• ‘beforewecreateagenerationofnon-swimmersunable to pass on this life-saving skill to their children in the future’

• ‘athirdofchildrenacrossthecountrywereunable to swim 25 metres unaided at the end of primary school’

• ‘four-in-10childrenwhowereunable to swim had never been offered lessons by their school’

Text 14.2.2

General comprehension

1 14 hours per week is the optimal amount of sport a teenager should undertake.

2 More than 14 hours of sport may have a negative effect.

3 answers will vary

4 answers will vary

5 answers will vary

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14 Teenage health

Text handling

1 Replace the words:

a taking part

b impact

c equating to

d promoting

e surveyed

f assessed

2 Locate the vocabulary:

a detrimental

b mean age

c cognitive functioning

d cease

e inverted

Grammar in context

Examples of noun clauses following ‘that’:

• ‘Teenagershavelongbeentoldthat being active and involved in sport is good for their health’

• ‘Butnewresearchsuggeststhat too much sport for teenagers could negatively impact their well-being’

• ‘theyfoundthat more than 14 hours appears to be detrimental to their health’

• ‘Theinvestigatorsfoundthat participants in the low and very high activity groups were more than likely to have well-being scores below 13’

Text 14.2.3

General comprehension

1 False – ‘Team sport is the only extracurricular activity to make a significant difference to students’ academic grades’

2 False – ‘physical education in schools has been reduced’

3 False – ‘teenagers who join sports teams rather than debating or drama clubs [are] more likely to succeed academically’

4 True – ‘academics looked for correlations between the types of after-school activities undertaken by the teenagers and their school success’

5 True – ‘students who lived in the countryside were more likely to take part in all kinds of extracurricular activities’

6 False – ‘This was true even once students’ race, sex, previous academic achievement and socio-economic background were taken into consideration’

7 False – ‘may help develop time-management skills’

8 False – ‘A lack of funding and, as a consequence, pressure on time were the main reasons given for the decrease’

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14Teenage health

Text handling

1 Replace the words:

Team sport is the only extracurricular activity to make a significant difference to students’ academic grades, new research has revealed. Teenagers who belong to sports clubs – as opposed to activities such as drama and debating – are also more likely to complete their education and enter higher education. The findings come after a recent survey revealed that physical education in schools has been reduced despite a surge in enthusiasm for sport after the London Olympics.

2 Match the words:

I E

II F

III G

IV D

V C

VI A

VII B

Grammar in context

Sentences using ‘despite’:

The findings come after a recent survey revealed that physical education in schools has been reduced despite a surge in enthusiasm for sport after the London Olympics.

Text 14.3.1

General comprehension

1 Match the endings:

I B

II I

III D

IV E

V G

VI A

2 answers will vary

3 She lost weight.

4 Her rhododendrons and having recovered enough to blow her nose properly again.

5 answers will vary

Text handling

1 F

2 G

3 D

4 I

5 K

6 A

Grammar in context

answers will vary