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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As Black Friday approaches, I thought I’d share this collection of activities that Krista presented last year at a BART event. For those looking for still more ideas, here is a post from 2012 on teaching about Black Friday / Buy Nothing Day, and here is one from 2007. Target audience: EAP students, high intermediate […]

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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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This transcript of a speech given by journalist Chris Hedges offers a very powerful look at our current state of affairs. The introduction of the article draws parallels between our self-destructive path and the novel Moby Dick, which opens the door to using this article as part of a unit on literature, as well as […]

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YES! Magazine just added a great new activity based on the above picture to their curriculum section. It would work well in an ESL or EFL classroom. It’s simple, it requires critical thinking, and it makes a great speaking or writing prompt. First, show students the above picture and ask them what they notice. Then, […]

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On a recent episode of Moyers and Company, Bill Moyers sat down with Wendell Berry. Berry is a writer, farmer and environmental activist who has been active in the US for over 50 years. The interview is pretty long (~40 minutes) but sections of it would be great in a lesson on the environment, food, […]

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I’d like to share a couple of articles about the ongoing crackdown by Russia’s government on homosexuality. This article summarizes the issues well, detailing the various laws that have been passed. These include a ban on adoption by gay parents and a law allowing police to arrest tourists and hold them for up to two […]

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The Story of Bottled Water is a video by Annie Leonard and Free Range Studios (of The Story of Stuff fame) on the issue of bottled water. It is relatively short (about 8 minutes) and the language is fairly accessible. They also offer an annotated script that students could read along with. Anthony Lavigne (LinkedIn) […]

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Food MythBusters covers a wide range of topics, including things like hunger and food security and marketing and advertising. They have resources in a variety of formats, including videos, infographics and fact sheets. The blog is also full of great information. This is definitely a site I’d look through if I were putting together a […]

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You Won’t Believe What the Food Industry Is Doing to Keep Americans Hooked on Junk Alternet’s April M. Short just put together a great article detailing some of the more devious ways in which corporations peddle their food products. First, she describes about how processed foods are made to look more natural, like McDonald’s using […]

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