📘 WEEK 1 – English

Main Topic: Hedging & Boosting
Vocabulary Focus: Habits and Gestures

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📅 Monday – Hedging & Boosting: Concept + Habits and Gestures

🎲 Warm-up / Icebreaker

Teacher shows students pictures of people with different gestures (crossed arms, smiling, pointing, looking nervous). Students guess what habits or feelings those gestures represent.

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🧠 Activating Previous Knowledge

Ask:

• How do you usually express your opinion in English?

• Do you always sound 100% sure? Or sometimes less sure?

• What gestures do you use when you want to show confidence?

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📖 Conceptualization (Extended)

Hedging and boosting are communication strategies that help us control the strength of our statements.

• Hedging = using language to soften, reduce, or show uncertainty.
  👉 It helps us sound polite, diplomatic, or careful.
  👉 Common hedging words: perhaps, maybe, I think, it seems, it might be, probably.

• Boosting = using language to strengthen, emphasize, or show certainty.
  👉 It helps us sound confident, firm, or convincing.
  👉 Common boosting words: clearly, obviously, certainly, of course, without doubt.

📌 Examples (hedging):

• Perhaps he is tired.

• I think we should start now.

• It might rain tomorrow.

📌 Examples (boosting):

• Clearly, this is the best solution.

• Of course, we will win.

• She is certainly the best student.

⚖️ Comparison with Spanish:

• Hedging ≈ “quizás, creo que, tal vez.”

• Boosting ≈ “claramente, por supuesto, sin duda.”

🤔 Why is this important?
In English, especially in academic writing and debates, sounding too direct can be rude or aggressive. Hedging shows respect for other opinions. Boosting, on the other hand, helps us sound convincing when we need to defend our ideas.

🚫 Common mistakes:

• Overusing I think → makes speech weak.

• Using boosters too much → sounds arrogant.

• Forgetting context: in a formal essay, hedging is more common than boosting.

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✍️ Application Activities

1. Match gestures to expressions (hedging or boosting).

2. Group work: students receive short statements and decide if they should hedge or boost them.

3. Role play: teacher gives situations (e.g., “You are late to class” / “You want to convince your friend to watch a movie”). Students choose hedging or boosting.

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📚 Homework

Write 5 sentences with hedging and 5 with boosting, using vocabulary about habits and gestures (e.g., Perhaps crossing arms means he is nervous / Clearly, smiling shows happiness).

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🌟 Closing

“The power of communication is not only what you say, but how strong or soft your words sound.”

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📅 Tuesday – Hedging & Boosting in Debates and Listening

🎲 Warm-up / Icebreaker

Quick debate: Dogs vs. Cats. Students must use at least one hedge (I think, maybe) and one booster (of course, clearly).

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🧠 Activating Previous Knowledge

Teacher asks: When you disagree with someone, do you speak strongly or softly? Why?

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📖 Conceptualization (Extended)

Today we apply hedging and boosting in debates and listening activities.

• In debates:

  • Hedging softens disagreement:

    • I’m not sure I agree.

    • Perhaps there is another way to see this.

  • Boosting makes arguments stronger:

    • Clearly, this is the right choice.

    • Without doubt, education is the key.

• In listening:

  • When we listen to native speakers, they constantly hedge and boost to control tone.

  • Recognizing these signals helps us understand attitude, not just meaning.

✅ Examples in debate:

• Hedge: I think video games can be useful sometimes.

• Boost: Obviously, exercise is essential for health.

⚖️ Spanish comparison:
In Spanish we also do this:

• Hedge: Creo que no estoy de acuerdo.

• Boost: Por supuesto que tienes razón.

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✍️ Application Activities

1. Listen to a short debate (teacher reads it aloud). Students underline hedging and boosting expressions.

2. Mini-debate in pairs: Should students have homework every day? Use at least 2 hedges and 2 boosters.

3. Class vote: Which team used hedging and boosting more effectively?

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📚 Homework

Listen to a short English video (TED Talk, YouTube, or teacher’s audio). Write down 5 examples of hedging and 5 of boosting.

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🌟 Closing

“Listening carefully helps us discover the strength behind the words.”

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📅 Wednesday – Hedging & Boosting in Writing (Letters, Essays, Discussions)

🎲 Warm-up / Icebreaker

Students complete sentences:

• Perhaps…

• Clearly…

• I think…

• Without doubt…

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🧠 Activating Previous Knowledge

Teacher asks: Do you use the same words when you write and when you speak? Why or why not?

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📖 Conceptualization (Extended)

Writing is different from speaking. In writing, we must be very careful with tone.

• In letters:
  Hedging makes polite requests:

  • I would like to ask if you could…

  • Perhaps you could send me more information.

• In essays:
  Hedging shows respect for other perspectives:

  • It seems that education improves opportunities.

  • This may be an effective solution.

• In discussions (formal writing):
  Boosters make arguments strong:

  • Clearly, climate change is a global challenge.

  • Without doubt, technology influences our lives.

🚫 Errors to avoid:

• Being too strong in formal essays (sounds arrogant).

• Being too weak in persuasive writing (sounds insecure).

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✍️ Application Activities

1. Students write a short letter using 3 hedges and 2 boosters.

2. Group activity: improve weak sentences by adding boosters.

3. Individual activity: rewrite aggressive sentences to make them softer with hedging.

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📚 Homework

Write a short essay (8–10 lines) about good and bad habits, using at least 4 hedges and 4 boosters.

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🌟 Closing

“Good writing is not only ideas, but the balance of strength and softness in words.”

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📅 Thursday – Analyzing Other Texts: Identifying Communicative Tone

🎲 Warm-up / Icebreaker

Teacher reads two short texts: one with only boosters, one with only hedges. Students identify which sounds more polite and which more aggressive.

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🧠 Activating Previous Knowledge

Ask: When you read something, can you feel if the writer is strong, polite, or insecure?

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📖 Conceptualization (Extended)

Analyzing texts helps us see how writers control tone.

• Hedging in texts:

  • Words like may, perhaps, it seems, probably show caution.

  • Useful in scientific or academic texts.

  • Example: The results may suggest a possible correlation.

• Boosting in texts:

  • Words like clearly, obviously, certainly, without doubt show certainty.

  • Useful in persuasive or argumentative texts.

  • Example: Clearly, technology has changed the way we live.

⚖️ Spanish comparison:

• Hedge: Parece que la economía está mejorando.

• Boost: Sin duda, la economía está mejorando.

📌 Why analyze?

• It improves critical reading.

• It helps us choose our own tone in writing.

• It makes us aware of author’s intention.

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✍️ Application Activities

1. Students read a short paragraph and underline hedging and boosting expressions.

2. Identify the overall tone: polite, cautious, or strong.

3. Rewrite a paragraph changing hedges to boosters and vice versa.

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📚 Homework

Find a short article (from internet, newspaper, or book) and highlight 5 hedging words and 5 boosting words. Write if the text sounds polite, formal, or strong.

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🌟 Closing

“Understanding the tone of others helps us become stronger communicators.”