Level: A2 and up

Merriam-Webster announced that it has chosen “they” as the 2019 word of the year. The singular “they” is a pronoun used to refer to a person whose gender identity is nonbinary.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/woty2019-top-looked-up-words-they

I was really inspired by the story and decided to create a lesson plan that would allow some discussion on how my students perceive gender roles.

All I needed was an authentic piece of language that I could use as conversation starter. It turned out that Ashley Wilde did just that.

The Gender Tag Project is a YouTube “tag” video created by Ashley that encourages individuals to answer a set of ten prompts relating to their experience with gender in the form of a YouTube video. The Gender Tag videos are compiled in a YouTube playlist called “The Gender Tag Project,” found by clicking here.

Start the lesson with a discussion: ‘Why do you think THEY became the word of the year 2019?’

Watch the They/them pronouns video together. With more advanced groups you might want to read the Merriam-Webster article.

Follow with a general discussion on how the tradiotional gender roles have changed over the last 10, 20, 50 years.

Then distribute the handouts and invie your SS to answer the questions.

The Gender Tag (1)