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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 activities. The Mental Detox Week website includes articles, posters, videos and links to other resources.

Coincidentally, I’m heading to Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage for a couple of weeks on the 21st, unplugging myself almost entirely.

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 teachers.

Some Peace in the Classroom by Fiona Eastley - This lesson plan asks students to reflect on a time they felt happy and peaceful while practicing their storytelling and listening skills. The lesson plan also asks students to think about how to make their life more peaceful and gives them a chance to put their thoughts into action.

Global Awareness Games in the Language Classroom by Armene Modi - Two games (Gender Issues Snakes and Ladders / EcoQuiz) for raising student awareness of contemporary issues. There are also some follow-up activities.

Adult Learning Activities from the California Distance Learning Project. This site contains a collection of news stories, complete with a variety of exercises. A typical story consists of a short reading (which is also provided as an audio file) followed by a review of the pronunciation of some of the key vocabulary words. Next, students are asked to spell those words, and finally match them with their definitions. There are many, many readings here, including a whole section on nature. Some are also accompanied by video.

Environmental education resources for multi-cultural education - Two free textbooks made for both teaching English and raising environmental awareness. Both are available as .PDFs.

LaRue Environmental Exercises - A collection of environmental exercises aimed at ESL learners. This site includes both reading and listening activities dealing with waste and recycling.

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 from the book Hungry Planet.

Either the book or the slideshow could be used as part of speaking or writing activities on issues such as food, health and wealth. For example, students could look through the pictures to find the one that most resembles their own family, and contrast it with some of the other photos.

via Larry Ferlazzo’s blog

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 feed and follows news reports that are absent from the mainstream media. While the satire is not subtle, it is accurate and heartfelt. I really enjoyed the book and, afterwards, noticed that it was written for “young adults”. Thus, it may be appropriate for advanced English learners.

In addition to offering a chance to read about and discuss global issues in an interesting way, Feed,also features interesting language. Anderson’s characters use a variety of fictitious slang words. The roots of many of these are readily apparent, and could lead to discussions on how language changes over time.

In addition, I think students might enjoy seeing the playful, creative aspect to language. This book could lead to discussions of the fact that there isn’t an absolute right and wrong when it comes to grammar and vocabulary. At the same time, some students might get frustrated with the unfamiliar words and see no point in learning terms that don’t exist outside of the novel.

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 to a variety of sweatshop related issues. Unfortunately, the majority of the gameplay consists of dragging and dropping shoe pieces onto a template and does not really contribute to any learning.

via Larry Ferlazzo’s blog

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 other visual resources that would be great in a language classroom. For example, I requested Manufactured Landscapes from the local library after reading about it in a well-titled blog post.

thanks Khalid

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 on airlines every 6 hours) and a picture of 32,000 barbie dolls (the number of elective breast augmentations per month). This series could be used for activites dealing with consumption, body image, the environment or other global issues.

“The pervasiveness of our consumerism holds a seductive kind of mob mentality. Collectively we are committing a vast and unsustainable act of taking, but we each are anonymous and no one is in charge or accountable for the consequences. I fear that in this process we are doing irreparable harm to our planet and to our individual spirits.

As an American consumer myself, I am in no position to finger wag; but I do know that when we reflect on a difficult question in the absence of an answer, our attention can turn inward, and in that space may exist the possibility of some evolution of thought or action.”

In Katrina’s Wake shows post-flood pictures, and could be used for activities on natural disasters and global warming or poverty and racism.

Books are available for both the post-Katrina set and Intolerable Beauty, and one is on the way for Running the Numbers. In addition, an educational DVD is in the works. I find that visual stuff works really well as a writing or discussion prompt. It is faster and often more evocative than reading. Despite the tragic content of Jordan’s pictures, they are powerfully beautiful and I suspect students would find them engaging.

Thanks Khalid

I posted about this awhile ago, but I finally had a chance to watch the Story of Stuff. It’s a 20 minute film about consumption that is packed with powerful information. It’s well presented, too. A bunch of additional resources are available as well, including a footnoted script and a fact sheet, both of which could make the film more accessible to language learners.

The film is dense, but broken into several parts. If I were showing it in class, unless the learners were very advanced, I would probably only tackle one section a day. The website also has a bunch of links to more information for each section of the movie, for learners who want to know more.

Update: Check out the new blog Skipp Class for some ideas on using the Story of Stuff in class.

Larry Ferlazzo just posted two multimedia plagiarism resources that could be useful for English learners. The first, Plagiarism, is an interactive slideshow that talks about what is and is not plagiarism. The information is all presented visually, which is nice because English learners can go through it at their own pace. The second, Academic Integrity, is a series of slideshows presenting these issues in a story form. The dialogue is pretty sophisticated, so it might be tough for English learners. Scripts are available, though.

Facing the Future is an organization that makes activity-based, global issues curricula for students of all ages. In addition to the great stuff they offer for sale, they have a ton of materials available as free downloads. I especially like the lesson plans from Engaging Students Through Global Issues, and the Climate Change curricula. Finally, don’t miss their collection of graphs and other graphics. They cover a range of issues and could readily be used for discussion activities.

Many of the materials fit US national standards and free registration is required to access the downloadable curricula.

via the World 727 email list