On November 19, World Toilet Day, the British charity WaterAid published a report about the shocking state of toilets around the world. It says 40 percent of the world’s population is ill because of a lack of toilets. It also says that many children die from diarrhea and other preventable fatal diseases because of dirty toilets. The report names over 35 countries in which toilet facilities are either a health hazard or where whole communities are without access to any lavatory. WaterAid hopes to raise awareness to the UN’s goal to halve the number of people without access to toilets or sanitation by 2015.

India is top of WaterAid’s list of countries with poor sanitation. More than 700 million Indians have to squat in fields or along roadsides because there are no toilets. Ethiopia has the lowest number of toilets per person – just six percent of Ethiopians have access to a loo. Surprisingly, Romania and Turkey are on the list. Both countries are candidates to become European Union members. WaterAid says there has been a cut in global funding on sanitation for today’s developing countries. The organization also says sanitation plays a major role in reducing mortality in poorer countries.

WARM-UPS

1. TOILET SEARCH: Find out as much information as you can on toilets – their history, design, strange facts, etc. Talk to many other students. After you have finished, sit with your partner(s) and exchange information. What did you find out that most surprised you? Did you hear anything you wish you hadn’t?

2. TOILET SURVEY: In pairs / groups, talk about your opinion of the toilets in the following places. After you have finished, share what you heard with other students.

My house My school My workplace The local train station

McDonald’s (or other fast food eatery) A friend’s house In another country Public toilet in the street

3. CHAT: In pairs / groups, decide which of these topics or words are most interesting and which are most boring.

Charities / water / aid / shocking reports / toilets / preventable diseases / health / hygiene / health hazards / India / Ethiopia / global funding / mortality rates

Have a chat about the topics you liked. For more conversation, change topics and partners frequently.

4. TOILET: Spend one minute writing down all of the different words you associate with the word “toilet”. Share your words with your partner(s) and talk about them. Together, put the words into different categories.

5. TOILET STORIES: Most people have a toilet story – a “best”, “worst”, “dirtiest”, etc. story. Talk to your partner(s) about your favorite toilet (horror) story. Change partners and swap stories.

6. TOILET OPINIONS: Do you agree with these opinions on toilets? Talk about them with your partner(s).

1. Toilets are strange inventions.
2. Toilets are too dirty to be inside a house.
3. If toilets had Internet access, people could save a lot of time.
4. The toilet should not be in the same room as the bath or shower.
5. I hate it when the toilet paper runs out.
6. Toilet seats are cleaner than kitchen chopping boards.
7. The toilet is the perfect place to relax.
8. Women need more toilets in public places.
9. The world should increase spending on toilets for poor people.
10. People spend too long going to the toilet.
11. Some people still need training in how to use a toilet.

BEFORE READING / LISTENING

1. TRUE / FALSE: Look at the article’s headline and guess whether these sentences are true (T) or false (F):

a.	A survey reports the wallpaper in most world toilets is badly designed.	T / F
b.	Dirty cause many preventable fatal diseases.	T / F
c.	November 19 is World Toilet Day.	T / F
d.	The United Nations hopes to provide toilets for everyone by 2015.	T / F
e.	China is top of the list of countries with the poorest sanitation.	T / F
f.	No European country was listed in the report.	T / F
g.	There has been a cut in global funding on sanitation.	T / F
h.	Good sanitation saves lives in poor countries.	T / F

2. SYNONYM MATCH: Match the following synonyms from the article:

a.	shocking	toilet
b.	state	danger
c.	preventable	crouch
d.	hazard	terrible
e.	halve	hygiene
f.	sanitation	financial support
g.	squat	condition
h.	loo	death
i.	funding	cut by 50 percent
j.	mortality	avoidable

3. PHRASE MATCH: Match the following phrases from the article (sometimes more than one combination is possible):

a.	a report about the shocking	person
b.	40 percent of the world’s population	fatal diseases
c.	diarrhea and other preventable	of countries with poor sanitation
d.	a health	without access to toilets
e.	halve the number of people	is ill because of a lack of toilets
f.	top of WaterAid’s list	role in reducing mortality
g.	the lowest number of toilets per	in global funding
h.	candidates to become	state of toilets around the world
i.	there has been a cut	hazard
j.	sanitation plays a major	European Union members

WHILE READING / LISTENING

GAP FILL: Put the words in the column on the right into the gaps in the text.

Shocking state of world’s toilets

On November 19, World Toilet Day, the British charity WaterAid ________ a report about the shocking ________ of toilets around the world. It says 40 percent of the world’s population is ill because of a ________ of toilets. It also says that many children die from diarrhea and other preventable ________ diseases because of dirty toilets. The report ________ over 35 countries in which toilet facilities are either a health hazard or where ________ communities are without access to any lavatory. WaterAid hopes to raise awareness to the UN’s goal to ________ the number of people without ________ to toilets or sanitation by 2015.		names access lack halve published fatal whole state
India is ________ of WaterAid’s list of countries with poor sanitation. More than 700 million Indians have to ________ in fields or along roadsides because there are no toilets. Ethiopia has the lowest number of toilets ________ person – just six percent of Ethiopians have access to a loo. Surprisingly, Romania and Turkey are on the ________. Both countries are ________ to become European Union members. WaterAid says there has been a ________ in global funding on sanitation for today’s developing countries. The organization also says sanitation plays a ________ role in reducing mortality in ________ countries.		candidates major squat poorer list top cut per

LISTENING

Listen and fill in the spaces.

Shocking state of world’s toilets

On November 19, World Toilet Day, the British ________ WaterAid published a report about the shocking _______ of toilets around the world. It says 40 percent of the world’s population is ill because of a lack of toilets. It also says that many children die from diarrhea and other preventable ______ diseases because of dirty toilets. The report names over 35 countries in which toilet facilities are either a health ________ or where whole communities are without access to any lavatory. WaterAid hopes to ________ awareness to the UN’s goal to ________ the number of people without access to toilets or sanitation by 2015.

India is top of WaterAid’s list of countries with ________ sanitation. More than 700 million Indians have to ________ in fields or along roadsides because there are no toilets. Ethiopia has the lowest number of toilets ____ _________ – just six percent of Ethiopians have access to a loo. Surprisingly, Romania and Turkey are on the list. Both countries are ____________ to become European Union members. WaterAid says there has been a cut in global _________ on sanitation for today’s developing countries. The organization also says sanitation plays a major role in _________ mortality in poorer countries.

AFTER READING / LISTENING

1. WORD SEARCH: Look in your dictionaries / computer to find collocates, other meanings, information, synonyms … for the words ‘major’ and ‘role’.

• Share your findings with your partners.
• Make questions using the words you found.
• Ask your partner / group your questions.

2. ARTICLE QUESTIONS: Look back at the article and write down some questions you would like to ask the class about the text.

• Share your questions with other classmates / groups.
• Ask your partner / group your questions.

3. GAP FILL: In pairs / groups, compare your answers to this exercise. Check your answers. Talk about the words from the gap fill. Were they new, interesting, worth learning…?

4. VOCABULARY: Circle any words you do not understand. In groups, pool unknown words and use dictionaries to find their meanings.

5. STUDENT “TOILETS” SURVEY: In pairs / groups, write down questions about toilets and hygiene.

• Ask other classmates your questions and note down their answers.
• Go back to your original partner / group and compare your findings.
• Make mini-presentations to other groups on your findings.

6. TEST EACH OTHER: Look at the words below. With your partner, try to recall exactly how these were used in the text:

charity 40 percent fatal hazard awareness 2015

India fields surprisingly candidates spending mortality

DISCUSSION

STUDENT A’s QUESTIONS (Do not show these to student B)

1. Did the headline make you want to read the article?
2. What did you expect to read about when you saw the headline?
3. Do you think talking about toilets is interesting?
4. What do you think of the fact that 40 percent people have no toilet?
5. What do you think people should do on World Toilet Day?
6. What would happen if all of the toilets in your country suddenly broke?
7. Do you think the report should name countries that don’t do enough to help poor countries?
8. Are you surprised Romania and Turkey are on the WaterAid list?
9. Toilets in homes in rich countries will soon give you a health report before you flush. What do you think of this?
10. Should poor countries spend money on toilets or better hospitals?

STUDENT B’s QUESTIONS (Do not show these to student A)

1. Did you like reading this article?
2. What do you think about what you read?
3. How important is providing toilets to people without them?
4. Have you ever been to any really dirty toilets?
5. Are you fussy about the kinds of toilets you use?
6. Do you ever read in the toilet?
7. When was the last time you were dying to go to the toilet?
8. Why are buildings and restaurants always built with too few ladies’ toilets?
9. What do you think of the phrases “go to powder one’s nose” and “visit the little boy’s room”, which mean “go to the toilet”?
10. Did you like this discussion?

AFTER DISCUSSION: Join another partner / group and tell them what you talked about.

1. What was the most interesting thing you heard?
2. Was there a question you didn’t like?
3. Was there something you totally disagreed with?
4. What did you like talking about?
5. Which was the most difficult question?

SPEAKING

DESIGNER TOILET: You have won a competition for a toilet design company to build you the toilet of your dreams. You must agree on the design and features and functions with your partner(s) – you share the same house and toilet.

	YOUR IDEAS
Shape
Size of toilet room
In-toilet entertainment
Hi-tech features
Color scheme
Flooring and wall covering
Other

• Change partners and show your design ideas to other students.
• Give each other feedback on the ideas.
• Discuss how likely it is your ideas might one day come true.

HOMEWORK

1. VOCABULARY EXTENSION: Choose several of the words from the text. Use a dictionary or Google’s search field (or another search engine) to build up more associations / collocations of each word.

2. INTERNET: Search the Internet and find more information on World Toilet Day. Share your findings with your class in the next lesson. Did you all find out similar things?

3. WORLD TOILETS: Create a plan for how your country (government, NGOs and general public) can help increase the sanitation and number of toilets in a poorer country. Explain what you wrote to your classmates in your next lesson. Did you all write about similar things?

4. FUTURE TOILET: Make designs for the toilet of the future. Explain all of the features and functions. Show your designs to your classmates in the next lesson. Did you all think of similar things?

ANSWERS

TRUE / FALSE:

a. F

b. T

c. T

d. F

e. F

f. F

g. T

h. T

SYNONYM MATCH:

a.	shocking	terrible
b.	state	condition
c.	preventable	avoidable
d.	hazard	danger
e.	halve	cut by 50 percent
f.	sanitation	hygiene
g.	squat	crouch
h.	loo	toilet
i.	funding	financial support
j.	mortality	death

PHRASE MATCH:

a.	a report about the shocking	state of toilets around the world
b.	40 percent of the world’s population	is ill because of a lack of toilets
c.	diarrhea and other preventable	fatal diseases
d.	a health	hazard
e.	halve the number of people	without access to toilets
f.	top of WaterAid’s list	of countries with poor sanitation
g.	the lowest number of toilets per	person
h.	candidates to become	European Union members
i.	there has been a cut	in global funding
j.	sanitation plays a major	role in reducing mortality

GAP FILL:

Shocking state of world’s toilets

On November 19, World Toilet Day, the British charity WaterAid published a report about the shocking state of toilets around the world. It says 40 percent of the world’s population is ill because of a lack of toilets. It also says that many children die from diarrhea and other preventable fatal diseases because of dirty toilets. The report names over 35 countries in which toilet facilities are either a health hazard or where whole communities are without access to any lavatory. WaterAid hopes to raise awareness to the UN’s goal to halve the number of people without access to toilets or sanitation by 2015.

India is top of WaterAid’s list of countries with poor sanitation. More than 700 million Indians have to squat in fields or along roadsides because there are no toilets. Ethiopia has the lowest number of toilets per person – just six percent of Ethiopians have access to a loo. Surprisingly, Romania and Turkey are on the list. Both countries are candidates to become European Union members. WaterAid says there has been a cut in global funding on sanitation for today’s developing countries. The organization also says sanitation plays a major role in reducing mortality in poorer countries.

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