Teacher's Guide - The Curriculum Project

17. Trade BlocsPre-teach:integrate (verb): join togethercustoms (noun): the agency that administers tax (‘duty’) placed on goods crossing borders,and searches for and tries to prevent the smuggling of untaxed or illegal goods.Ask students to read the first paragraph about Trade Blocs. They should writedown any words that they don’t know. Elicit any words that students don’tknow. Ask if they can guess the meaning (give them some clues if necessary).If not, give them a dictionary to look it up and tell the class, or tell themyourself.Brainstorm1. Can you name any trade blocs in the world today. Do you know anythingabout them? Do you know who their members are?Ask students whether they know any of them. If they can’t think of anything,prompt them with some suggestions, i.e., ASEAN, the EU, NAFTA, Mercosur.1. The Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN)Ask students to read the text about ASEAN. They should write down anywords that they don’t know. Elicit any words that students don’t know. Askif they can guess the meaning (give them some clues if necessary). If not,give them a dictionary to look it up and tell the class, or tell them yourself.Groupwork2. Mini-Quiz. Put the students into groups of 3-5 (you need an even numberof groups for this activity). Let’s say Groups A, B, C and D. Ask each group toprepare a quiz of three questions about the text on ASEAN. They should writethe questions on one piece of paper, and the answers on the other piece ofpaper. Give them about 20-25 minutes to do this.Then ask the groups to sit opposite each other in sets of two. Group A askstheir first question to Group B. Group B must try and answer the question.They are allowed to look at the text. When they have answered, Group Aconfirms whether they are correct or incorrect. Now Group B asks Group Atheir first question. Group A answers. This continues until both groups haveasked and answered three questions. Groups C & D do the same.Now, mix up the groups again, so Group A is with Group D, and Group B iswith Group C. Again they ask and answer three questions, but this time theyare NOT allowed to look at the text.Discussion3. Elicit existing knowledge from the students about ASEAN and Burma.Note: The students may not know anything about ASEAN and Burma. In thiscase, ask students whether they can imagine, or guess, why there have beenproblems between ASEAN, Burma and Western governments.The Curriculum Project ECONOMICS: an introduction - Teacher’s Guide62