ESL etc.

I recently attended a webinar by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education. The webinar introduced some new teaching materials aimed at helping students understand how they could take productive actions related to climate change. I like this approach, as I’ve found in my own teaching that simply teaching about problems can […]

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I just read this account of an English teachers experience participating in a conference session using Reacting to the Past. Reacting to the Past is an approach to teaching history and critical thinking skills using historical roleplays. From their pedagogical introduction: Reacting games last from four to fourteen class sessions, although most games are in […]

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This is a great (and quick) activity to highlight how privilege works, and how it can be largely invisible to those who enjoy it. The short version: Students are instructed to ball up a sheet of paper. Next, the teacher puts the recycling bin in the front of the classroom, and tells them that, in […]

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This is a guest post written by Linda Ruas from the New Internationalist Easier English Wiki. If you have materials or ideas you’d like to share, please email me. I have often felt I need to apologize in some way for my wiki. Reading about breast-ironing in Cameroon, slavery in Mauritania, the feral rich in […]

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I first posted about the New Internationalist Easier English Wiki about a year and a half ago. Since then, they’ve added a lot of great materials to their site. The New Internationalist is a magazine focused on promoting global justice and, through their easier English wiki, they make articles more accessible to English language learners […]

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This Valentine’s Day activity from Teaching Tolerance provides insight into Valentine’s Day’s roots as a holiday of resistance. It also highlights the injustices that can occur during this holiday — “moments of exclusion and ostracism, assumptions of a heterosexual norm” — and draws a parallel between the ban on gay marriage and the ban on […]

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IATEFL’s Global Issues Special Interest Group just added a great new feature to their website: eLesson Inspirations. These inspirations take of the form of video clips, each accompanied by several ideas for how they could be used in a class. Five videos have been posted, and they will add new ones every Saturday. One that […]

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IATEFL’s Global Issues Special Interest Group is hosting Food Issues Month this October. They’re asking teachers from around the world to shares lessons and activities related to: Hunger and food scarcity Food safety and food regulation Food advertising and labels Meat Genetically modified (GM) foods Diets and food lifestyle choices Obesity and eating disorders Sustainable […]

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January 21 to 25th is No Name-Calling Week, a national campaign aimed at combating bullying in schools. The resources page features links to lesson plans for elementary, middle school and high school students. There are also art lessons and promotional materials. None of these activities are specifically targeted towards language learners, but many could be […]

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Two English teachers (Linda Ruas and John Shepheard) have launched a new wiki featuring simplified versions of articles from the New Internationalist, a magazine focused on promoting global justice. Their intention is the make these articles more accessible for English language learners. As of today, the New Internationalist Easier English Wiki features modified articles from […]

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