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C1 Advanced Speaking & Grammar Workshop

🎓 SCHOLARSHIP RANKING: COMMITTEE CHALLENGE

Evaluate 6 candidates, debate socioeconomic privilege vs. academic merit, and master Participle Clauses with 10 high-impact C1 vocabulary terms.

25 Minutes

A diverse group of university students sitting around a table in a bright study hall, collaborating on documents and deb

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1. Rules of the Game

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For the teacher

1 Split class into scholarship committees of 4 students and designate one official Tally Keeper per table.
2 Clarify dual scoring criteria upfront: strictly 1 pt for valid Participle Clauses and 1 pt per target C1 term.
3 Keep to the 5 steps and the 25 minutes.
4 Conduct the cross-committee whole-class vote where each group pitches their top recipient for bonus points.
5 Refer to the bottom Teacher Correction Key to live-correct dangling participles and wrong past tense forms.

You are the chair

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Student Committee Mission

1 You are a scholarship committee. Rank the six applicants.
2 Read the 6 dossiers meticulously and debate who faces the starkest systemic obstacles versus raw merit.
3 Give your reasons with participle clauses to win points.
4 Integrate the 10 target C1 vocabulary items accurately into verbal deliberations and written ranking sheets.
5 Give a 45-second pitch for your number 1 choice, then vote for another team.

Role: Voting Committee Members

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2. Timed plan (25 minutes)

5 Precise Steps

Step 1

Handout & Appoint

Distribute applicant dossiers and appoint table tally keeper to track language metrics.

Step 2

Read & Compare

Examine the 6 profiles and contrast systemic barriers against individual accomplishments.

Step 3

Debate & Record

Debate candidate ranks 1-6; draft core justifications strictly using participle clauses.

Step 4

Class Pitch

Each committee delivers a 45-second pitch for their #1 pick; whole room casts votes.

Step 5

Tally & Feedback

Tally keepers aggregate total points; teacher highlights most articulate participle constructions.

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3. The 6 Scholarship Applicant Dossiers

Case Profiles

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Maya

🏠 Home: Lives with two elderly grandparents in an impoverished industrial suburb.

📈 Results: Top of her graduating cohort in theoretical physics and advanced calculus.

⭐ Activities: Organises free weekly peer-tutoring sessions to alleviate acute learning gaps among local youth.

Field: STEM / Physics

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Tariq

🏠 Home: Raised in a severely marginalised migrant community with zero family inheritance.

📈 Results: Ranked second in national vocational mechanical engineering certification modules.

⭐ Activities: Works 20 hours/week in family auto repair shop to support household rent payments.

Field: Applied Engineering

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Elena

🏠 Home: Endured severe economic deprivation after her family fled armed conflict abroad.

📈 Results: Self-taught software programmer; developed the leading regional disaster-relief web app.

⭐ Activities: Runs weekend digital literacy workshops for elderly refugees and isolated neighbours.

Field: Computer Science

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Liam

🏠 Home: Deep rural agrarian background facing entrenched intergenerational poverty.

📈 Results: Highest state grade in agricultural biochemistry and sustainable crop science.

⭐ Activities: Directs a youth co-op initiative that helps redistribute surplus farm produce to local soup kitchens.

Field: Agronomy & Ecology

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Sofia

🏠 Home: Comes from an affluent, highly privileged dynasty; seeking financial autonomy.

📈 Results: Gold medal winner in the International Chemistry Olympiad with a peer-reviewed publication.

⭐ Activities: Channelling 100% of commercial research stipends into trusts fostering educational mobility.

Field: Chemical Synthesis

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Kenji

🏠 Home: Inhabits overcrowded social council housing with three younger dependent siblings.

📈 Results: Top portfolio distinction in applied graphic design and public advocacy media.

⭐ Activities: Coordinates grassroots street-art therapy workshops empowering marginalised adolescents.

Field: Visual Communications

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4. Official Committee Ranking Sheet

Ranks 1 to 6

Record your committee's final order. Every reason should use a participle clause (e.g. 'Having endured...', 'Faced with...') and a target word.

Rank	Applicant Name	Core Justification (Must use Participle Clause & C1 Vocab)
1	____ (e.g. Elena)	____ (e.g. Faced with severe economic deprivation, Elena engineered solutions that alleviate hardship...)
2	____ (e.g. Tariq)	____ (e.g. Having been denied any inheritance, he worked 20 hours weekly while maintaining top grades...)
3	____ (Applicant Name)	____ (Write participle reason here...)
4	____ (Applicant Name)	____ (Write participle reason here...)
5	____ (Applicant Name)	____ (Write participle reason here...)
6	____ (Applicant Name)	____ (Write participle reason here...)

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5. Keeping score

Scoring

Participle Clause

Awarded for each grammatically sound participle structure spoken during debate or written in the ranking sheet.

C1 Unit Term

Awarded each time a team uses one of the 10 target words correctly. Target words: affluent, deprivation, impoverished, privileged, inheritance, mobility, redistribute, marginalised, entrenched, alleviate.

Peer Pitch Victory

Voted by rival committees for the most persuasive, rhetorically powerful candidate defence (no self-voting!).

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Tally keeper

Use hash marks on scrap paper (||||) whenever a colleague uses a valid clause or vocabulary word.

Table Score: ____ (0)

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6. Sentence starters

C1 Participles

Incorporate these high-scoring frameworks directly into your spoken deliberations and written committee sheets:

Pattern 1 • Past Reason Perfect Participle

"Having grown up in an impoverished district, [Name] profoundly understands the reality of economic hardship..."

Pattern 2 • Circumstance Passive Participle

"Faced with entrenched systemic deprivation, [Name] nevertheless managed to pioneer..."

Pattern 3 • Mental State Negative Present Participle

"Not knowing whether upward financial mobility was genuinely attainable, [Name] took initiative to..."

Pattern 4 • Denial / History Passive Perfect Participle

"Having been denied any family inheritance, [Name] worked tirelessly through nights to finance..."

Pattern 5 • Continuous Condition Present Participle

"Enduring severe social marginalisation, [Name] has repeatedly demonstrated unmatched resilience by..."

Pattern 6 • Purpose / Resolve Adjectival Participle

"Determined to alleviate hardship in the community, [Name] chose to share their skills by..."

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7. Common mistakes

Two example answers

🏆 Benchmark Model Justifications (Top 2 Picks)

Elena (Rank #1 Benchmark) Full Points

"Faced with extreme economic deprivation after escaping conflict, Elena demonstrated unmatched resilience by engineering an open-access platform to alleviate community crisis communication bottlenecks."

✓ Valid passive participle + 2 accurate C1 items (deprivation, alleviate).

Tariq (Rank #2 Benchmark) Full Points

"Having worked twenty hours a week in the family repair shop, Tariq still ranked second in the national certification, even though he was denied any inheritance."

✓ Valid perfect active participle + 1 accurate C1 item (inheritance).

⚠️ Critical Check: Common Errors to Intercept

❌ Error Type 1: Wrong Past Tense After Having

"Having grew up in an impoverished suburb..."

✅ Correct: "Having grown up in an impoverished suburb..." (Always use V3/Past Participle after 'Having').

❌ Error Type 2: Dangling Participle (Subject Mismatch)

"Having studied hard, the scholarship was awarded to Maya."

✅ Correct: "Having studied hard, Maya was awarded the scholarship." (The subject of the main clause must perform the action).

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8. Game variations

Adaptable Rigour

Level 1 Supported

Guided Bank

Place printed C1 vocabulary definitions and skeletal participle stems on tables for continuous reference during deliberations.

Focus: Accuracy

Level 2 Moderate

The 50/50 Split

Introduce a sudden funding mandate: the scholarship MUST be split between exactly two candidates. Groups must renegotiate and redistribute resources.

Focus: Negotiation

Level 3 Intensive

Direct Rebuttal

Committees must directly cross-examine and counter the justification offered by an adjacent group before final score tallies are locked.

Focus: Critique

Fast Group Extension

Press Release

Draft a formal 3-sentence university press release officially announcing the winner, deploying at least 3 C1 unit words.

Focus: Writing Mastery

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9. Closing questions

Critical Debrief

Conclude the session with whole-class philosophical analysis. Challenge learners to synthesize moral principles with target lexicon:

Merit vs. Deprivation

Should prestigious scholarships strictly prioritise exceptional academic merit, or should their primary objective be to alleviate deep-seated systemic disadvantage?

Target Concept: Distributive Justice

Social Reproduction

In what concrete ways can elite university scholarships either actively reinforce or radically disrupt entrenched social inequalities across generations?

Target Concept: Structural Mobility

Collective Mobility

Does granting individual financial aid genuinely stimulate broader social mobility for a marginalised community, or does it merely extract exceptional individuals?

Target Concept: Community Impact