Professional development | Climate Change Class – WSI

This lesson began with a reaction from learners to some comments I wrote on the board taken from a internet discussion thread on climate change. Comments were either for or against climate change being a result of humankind. NOTE the slips of paper containing all comments had been misplaced at the school, therefore writing two or three of them on the board that came to mind served almost as well.

I seated groups according to level, and learners discussed for a short time the views on the board with moderate interest. A good idea might have been to ask that they write onto slips of paper their own views, shuffle and redistribute them, in order to promote some early oral fluency on the topic. I then chested some pictures to the class which contained colour illustrations of various historical epochs (extinct dinosaurs, stone-age people around fires, melting icecaps), and in groups they matched the illustrations with various epoch titles, then those with the correct dates.

Prior to this, I had laid long datelines across each groups' table. However, in retrospect, putting them on the tables later would have been better because learners now started that activity too too early; a task like this should be staggered.

What I wanted to highlight, in order to encourage debate, was some of the changes coming into effect in the world in our relatively short existence.

I read aloud the true dateline for them to check against. Beginning 64 million years ago and reaching the present except for two timeline nodes.

I revealed the remaining dates, 'less than 1 lifetime ago: we used up half the world's oil supply,' and
'just 15 years ago: the development and deployment of the world-wide web.'

As we were running out of time there was a brief final discussion. Considering the large size of the class, I think we did quite well.

listening text from ABC Radio National

We need to evolve to cope with the problem. Not physically but culturally. Not biological evolution, but systems evolution. We would need to use the collective capacity of human beings, from the local community, to the regional community through to the global community. We need conviction of the problem, understanding; we need to know what people are doing in other communities and other places.

Whether man-made or not, climate change is in effect and is seen to be worsening exponentially, thus we are trying to work to find solutions. 

But the history of humanity is that things often have to get very much worse before we actively try to make them get better – why should things be any different in terms of our current crisis?

We usually think of the history of humanity as an unimaginably long period of time, but if we adjust that scale and think in terms of lifetimes, it’s not that difficult to see that, actually, we haven’t been around that long and there’s been a great deal of change,

64 mil years ago                                      dinosaurs became extinct
2 million years ago                                  climate change. the seas were rising
125, 000 years / 1, 800 lifetimes ago(laid end-to-end) our species, homo sapiens sapiens
1, 000 lifetimes ago                                            invention of language
570 lifetimes ago                                            the stone age
140 lifetimes ago                                                agriculture
70 lifetimes ago                                                       writing
3 lifetimes ago                                            industrial civilisation

< 1 lifetime                            we’ve burnt up half the world’s oil

and 1/5 of a lifetime (15 years)    the development & deployment of the WWW

in light of all this, implications are that we can affect change, and we need to consider how it is affected. And so we see, the changes are of our lifetime and that what can happen in our lifetime can be enormously significant.

One way I attempt to fathom it is by thinking about some of those smaller things we do currently and enlarging or extending those into the bigger picture: thinking of that next person in the community as someone connected rather than not – one you have cleared your rubbish at your seat in the park for, the rubbish collector you've separated your domestic waste for, one you've left reading material in the waiting room for, sent the lift down for, planted a tree for – someone who is unseen and unknown to us, yet we are smart enough to know that these small measures help. It is in this same sense, in our current situation, that we need to extend certain considerations to the next generations.

(in class the teacher could elicit many of those small things we do that make a big difference, e.g. turning of the lights, the air-conditioning, riding a bicycle, solar energy.)

It’s not that we might be sadistic, a take-as-you-need society, reckless or careless towards the environment and Earth's ecosystems, rather we just don’t know how to see it and act. 

Having said that, as awareness and understanding spreads and as warming goes on increasing, so does the culpability of larger institutions and companies who have a greater ability at quick change and prevention of damage. 

All the same, the most apparent solution in my mind, as we see the solution of having one singular world-government becoming less viable, lies in the collective will power of the individual. 

Change begins with one. Even the mightiest waterfalls

have begun with a single drop of water, and look what becomes of that.

Iguazu Falls, Argentina

Professional development | Book Club class no.2 – WSI

Fruits of students' efforts in our second Book Club class.

Using a newspaper article about the London Underground or subterranean railway network to encourage ideas on how they could improve their own transport system the learners were asked to read and jot down suggestions, first alone, and then in groups. Some seemed not greatly interested in the task.

To be fair, we'd discussed the subway in a previous lesson, where learners read a collection of subway-themed poems (Goldfish, Mosquito, and Tow Logs) and walked around like passers-by themselves in 'subways' reading various billboards. In that lesson some good, meaningful discussion had come about. 

The lesson I had prepared was tasked-based. The aim of the lesson was 'to develop skills of reading for gist and oral fluency through task-based activities.' This was a Friday night and the learners were tired. But also there was a new mix of learners, some of whom hadn't been in the previous lesson.

This was not a lesson for slow discussion about book themes and plot, etc., but a skills lesson based on books as materials. Skills and language development are achievable within one  sixty-minute lesson.

  
The pictures above some ways to improve the city's transport system, a post-reading activity.

In Literature by Alan Duff and Alan Marly (Oxford University Press), the book from which I took this lesson's article on the London Underground, it states that literature is better used to stimulate language activities by 'engaging the students interactively with the text, with fellow students, and with the teacher,' favouring this over a study of literature per se (either from the literary critical or the stylistics viewpoint). 

Some other comments:

'[with this approach] The student is an active agent not a passive recipient.'

'The activities should offer ample opportunities for the students to contribute and share 

their own experiences, perceptions, and opinions.'

'The text should be allowed to suggest the type of activity. This means breaking away from  

the stereotypical format of text and questions.'

'Texts can be presented in a variety of ways. This may sometimes mean withholding the 

text until the end of an activity, cutting it up, using fragments of it only, and so on.'

But then what about real literature? The book comments further:

'[this approach] might be seen as failing to teach real literature and taking literature 'seriously', by which is generally meant a body of texts recognised as great literature [...] There is nothing sacred about a literary text. All such texts were at some time written down, rearranged, scratched out, torn up revised, misprinted, and so on. Anyone doubting this should simply look at any well-known writer's notebook or manuscript.'

'More importantly perhaps, if students are encouraged to adopt a 'hands on' approach to texts, they are likely to lose some of the awesome respect which the literary printed word inspires, and which gets in the way of the individual reader/interpreter's personal response to the text.'

Any practice is good practice, and it was still a good skills lesson.

In future I'll continue to find ways to energise the class and perhaps adapt materials.

'abdicate' a definition

(transitive & intransitive verb)
noun - abdication, abdicator
Spanish -  abdicar
origin - mid 16th cent.: from Latin abdicate-'renounced', from the verb abdicar, from ab- 'away, from' + dicare 'declare'.

1. (of a monarch) renounce one's throne; renounce one's right, power, claim, in a formal manner; abdicate, renounce, resign are synonyms when they are used in the sense of to give up formally or definitely a position of trust, honour, or glory -abdicate is the precise word to use when that which is relinquished involves sovereign or inherent power: it is applied specifically to the act of a monarch who gives up his throne -but in extended use it may also be applied to any act involving surrender of an inherent dignity or claim to pre-eminence

[without object] in 1918 Kaiser Wilhelm abdicated as German emperor | [with object] Ferdinand abdicated the throne in favour of the emperor's brother

the father image of the chancellor casts a long and overpowering shadow of a people which has in the past  abdicated its political thinking and social sovereignty to the paternalistic leader - Handler

Libya's Gaddafi opposition body trapped under the emperor to abdicate the city a critical situation - Free Paper

  

2. fail to fulfil or undertake (a responsibility or duty)


the government was accused of abdicating its responsibility 

Renounce  is often used in place of abdicate the king renounced his throne especially when sacrifice for a greater end is intentionally implied.

'supplant' a definition

(transitive verb) 
noun -  supplanter
Spanish - supplantar
origin - Middle English: from Old French supplanter or Latin supplantare 'trip up', from sub- 'from below' + planta 'sole'. 


supersede and replace; to take the place of (another), as through force, scheming, strategy, or the like; basically implies a dispossessing or ousting by craft, fraud, or treachery and a taking or uprising of the place, possessions, or privileges of the one dispossessed or ousted.



the socialist society which Marx believed would eventually supplant capitalism.

you three from Milan did supplant good Prospero - Shakespeare

the pretty young wife finds herself in the humiliating position of having been supplanted by a brisk, unlovely woman - Bullet 

eager to succeed Luis and even to supplant him - Belloc

The ministry gave no details of the talks but the meeting itself was an indication that Beijing wants to keep open lines of communication with the rebel forces that could supplant Gaddafi, even as it urges a political solution - The Zimbabwe Mail


But, supplant sometimes implies an uprooting and replacing rather than a dispossessing and usurping; in such cases trickery or treachery is no longer implied

his tutor tried to supplant his fears by arousing his sense of curiosity
don't claim that the Devine revelation has been supplanted . . . but that it has been amplified - Mackenzie 

the architect, to serve the vogue, uptilts greenhouses thirty stories high on stilts, supplanting walls of stone with sheets of glass - Hillyer 

Friend Page – WSI

'FriendPage', an imaginary online social network

    Despite a small turn-out this class went well. The service manager at the institute provided me a lesson plan for it which was sourced from the British Council's website. As the plan describes, in this lesson students are given 'a chance to create an imaginary on-line "wall" where they can react with each other.'

    After a general discussion about Facebook, Twitter, social networking sites, learners read a text to answer one question which encouraged reading for gist. Then afterwards, reading for information. Learners thence were introduced to 'FriendPage' written on the board. I elicited typical profile information under the heading on the board. Prompts included 'interested in?', 'personality?', 'right now I feel?': a few of the prompts the students were then given to construct their own profile with. Learners worked alone. Although the plan prescribed a 'snappy' feel or pace for the lesson, this one had more of a relaxed pace a) because of the size of the group (and the absence of a sense of it being a lesson) b) the late hour of the class c) the mixed aspect of student levels. Nevertheless, the group seemed interested in what they were doing. I demonstrated the next activity and learners followed, writing a question of their choosing on each wall of the neighbouring participant (on a piece of paper with lines marked 'fold here'), before passing the papers clockwise, reading and responding to the comment by writing a response, folding the paper over, and so on. 

    At the end, the class unfolded their 'walls' and read the interesting conversations that had transpired there.

Students' 'walls', and postings thereon.

Professional development | Book Club class no.3 – WSI

Students study poems 'Goldfish' and 'The Mosquito'
 (Alan Jackson/D. H. Lawrence).

One very good skills lesson.

In this class learners saw a large picture of a goldfish via Google Images then listened in horseshoe seating as I related to them my own story about a camping trip in The Blue Mountains, Australia.

I asked the learners that over the next few minutes they recall an incident of their own involving either fish or mosquitoes.

As learners thought back over fish and mosquitoes in their life, I played a Monty Python clip via YouTube,  "Mosquito Hunting" followed by another clip of some interesting looking fish, that their memory may be jogged.

They moved themselves into groups of four and recounted their stories. Everyone had a story. The materials, it seemed, had activated the schemata.

I let this go on for at least ten minutes.

We then listened to a reading of two poems. Firstly, 'Goldfish' by Alan Jackson and 'The Mosquito' by D. H. Lawrence (which I'd had recorded by one of the staff at the centre). We listened to the first poem three times. In between listenings learners tried to piece together fragments by sharing what they had  heard and understood. The same for the second poem. I handed them each a copy of the poetry they had just listened to and asked them to mark anything either interesting, difficult, or similar between the two poems – I wrote instructions on the board in case of any misunderstanding.

Learners worked studying alone. 

Key moment: some students from higher-levels finished quickly and started already discussing meaning of the poetry.

Therefore, I mixed the class so that there were new people at every table. They discussed the words or sentences they had marked in the poetry, which eventually grew into a wider discussion of the meaning of the poems.

After about five minutes worth of feedback and some varied interpretation of 'The Mosquito' and 'Goldfish', I made some comments, announced the next class and handed out materials to be discussed there only to those who said they would come back for it.