ESL etc.

The International Network Archive at Princeton has an interesting collection of Infographics. These six “maps” depict statistical information in a variety of striking graphical ways. The one pictured here is on transportation, and I think the ones on weapons and water could also be useful in a global issues ESL class. Personally, […]

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eslflow.com has a good-sized collection of environmental activities for the ESL / EFL classroom. Topics include climate change, pollution and transportation. The materials look to be mainly vocabulary exercises and readings. Let us know in the comments if you find any particularly good ones.

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FreePoverty is a new site similar to FreeRice. Students go through a geography quiz, with correct answers raising money for water donations to developing countries. Currently, I haven’t seen any third party validation of the site, so I’m not sure if it is legit or not. The quiz is pretty fun, though. […]

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“Take your TV, your DVD player, your video iPod, your XBOX 360, your laptop, your PSP, and say goodbye to them all for seven days.”
Mental Detox Week invites people to unplug for a week. Formerly known as TV Turnoff Week, it is promoted by Adbusters and makes an engaging topic for discussion and journaling […]

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I was just going through some files, and I found a bunch of links to ESL / EFL activities and materials that deal with global issues. Some are electronic textbooks, while others are in article form. I also added all of these to the global issues activities page in my collection of links for […]

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Time Magazine has a slideshow showing photos of 15 families alongside a week’s supply of food. Each pictures is accompanied by information about the country in which it was taken, the amount of money that the family typically spends on food per week, and a favorite recipe of two. The images are taken […]

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In Feed,M. T. Anderson describes a dystopic future, in which the majority of Americans are continually online, via neural implants. The feed supplies a constant stream of advertisements and entertainment options, while keeping tabs on the users consumption patterns.
The story follows two high school students, one of whom (atypically) questions the value of the […]

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My interest in videogames as tools for teaching global issues has been waning a bit, but I just saw Sim Sweatshop, a game that attempts to let players experience life in a sneaker sweatshop. Throughout the game, the player is presented with options and situations via pop-up windows. These require reading, and refer […]

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Dot Earth is Andrew C. Revkin’s blog at the New York Times. He covers a wide range of news related to sustainability and climate change. It is too complex for most language learners, but simplified versions of some of the articles he references could be useful.
In addition, he often refers to videos and […]

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Photographer Chris Jordan has three series of striking pictures, each of which could stimulate students to think about a variety of issues.
Each picture in Running The Numbers depicts an America statistic by showing an extremely high number of a mundane item. For example, there is a picture of 1,000,000 plastic cups (the number used […]

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