“All human beings have three lives: public, private, and secret.
”
Gabriel García Márquez (1927 – 2014), Colombian author
1. Privacy Discussion
1. What is privacy? Why is privacy important? How much do you value your privacy? Why?
2. What kind of things do people want to keep private? What opinions or actions result in society
judging people?
3. How do you act differently in public compared to how you act in private?
4. How would people act differently if they didn't have any privacy? Would you act differently if you
thought someone was watching you?
5. How would you feel if you found out that someone had been watching everything you did?
6. Does the public have a right to know about the private lives of politicians or other government
officials? What about if what they do in their private lives conflicts with what they say in public?
7. Do you always respect the privacy of others? When don't you respect the privacy of others?
Should children have privacy from their parents?
8. Should privacy be considered a human right?
2. Privacy Vocabulary
• invasion of privacy (noun) – the unjustifiable violation of, or intrusion into, a person’s personal life.
• to invade someone’s privacy (verb phrase) – to intrude into someone’s personal life without
consent or justification.
• in the privacy of one’s home (phrase) – used to say that what people do in private is of no concern
to anyone else.
• (the) right to privacy (noun) – the right for a person’s personal life to remain private and not
publicised; the right not to be monitored or observed.
• confidential (adjective) – describes something that should be kept secret or private.
• skeleton(s) in the/one’s closet (idiom) – a hidden fact about a person that if revealed would cause
embarrassment or loss of reputation.
Using the vocabulary words above, complete the following sentences (remember to use the correct
form of the word, e.g. verb conjugation or plural noun):
1. After it was revealed that the president’s brother was in jail for drug trafficking, he insisted that
there were no more .
2. An arrest warrant was put out for Edward Snowden after he leaked information.
3. Revelations from the president’s ex-wife about his ‘strange’ requests certainly opened a few
eyes, but what he chooses to do is his business.
4. The press don’t care about people’s as long as they get a story
to sell newspapers.
5. The press should respect people’s and not intrude on their private lives.
6. Prince Harry and Megan Markle sued the Daily Mail for publishing photos of their child saying it
was a gross .
Privacy vocabulary comprehension questions
1. What do you consider to be an invasion of your privacy?
2. When have people invaded your privacy? What did they do?
3. Do you think people have a right to do whatever they want in the privacy of their own home? Are
there any exceptions?
4. What government information should always be confidential? Which government information
should never be confidential?
5. What is more important to you: security or the right to privacy?
6. Which people do you suspect have a skeleton in their closet?
3. Video: The Importance of Privacy
You are going to watch a TED Talk by Glenn Greenwald called “Why privacy matters.”
Watch the video here: https://yourenglishpal.com/blog/esl-conversation-lesson-plan-privacy/
While you watch the video, answer the following questions (00:00 – 15:16:
Multiple choice
1. What did the US and its partners use to dramatically increase mass surveillance?
a) phones b) the internet c) telescreens
2. What do people who say they don’t care about privacy do?
a) publish all their emails b) leave their doors open c) try to protect their privacy
3. What did Mark Zuckerberg do to protect his privacy?
a) deleted his Facebook account b) bought neighbouring houses c) closed the curtains
4. Who have things to hide?
a) good people b) bad people c) everyone
Sentence completion
5. When someone is watching or monitoring us, our changes dramatically.
6. Jeremy Bentham conducted a privacy experiment on who didn’t know they were
being watched at any given time.
7. Michel Foucault realised that the idea of being monitored or watched was the key means of
societal .
8. Traditional forms of tyranny are no longer necessary as mass surveillance creates a prison in
the .
Short answer
9. Winston Smith was a character in which novel?
10. A society in which people believe they are being monitored breeds what?
11. What resides in the realm of privacy?
12. What does s system of mass surveillance supress?
4. Privacy Conversation Questions
1. Which cultures are more concerned with privacy? Which cultures don't care so much about
privacy?
2. How has social media and other forms of communications technology affected privacy?
3. What is the relationship between privacy and security?
4. Should anyone have privacy if they are suspected of committing crimes (or are considered to
have the potential to commit crimes)?
5. How can privacy help to protect us? Whom does it protect us from? What are some threats to
privacy?
6. Does a lack of privacy result in conformity and obedience? Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Is
privacy taken away from people in order to control them?
7. Do you think we will have more or less privacy in the future? What would life be like with no
privacy?
8. Is privacy dead? Is it possible to maintain privacy in the digital age? Do you agree that it is no
longer a social norm?
5. Privacy Writing Task
Write about your opinion of privacy. Try to use some of the vocabulary you learned earlier in this lesson.
In your answer, you could include some of the following topics:
• Why privacy is important.
• How people’s privacy is invaded.
• Whether we are losing our privacy.
Alternative exam practice question:
In the age of social media and with advances in technology, privacy is no longer a social norm, and
people should learn to accept that. Do you agree or disagree with this?
