Wednesday 4 October 2017

What are Sustainable Development Goals?


Raymond Van Neste writes about Sustainable Development Goals and their urgent need in today's world particularly in relation to teaching....







Answers and future solutions to poverty, inequality and climate change:

Development Goals highlight some of the most vital and urgent needs of today’s world.  They cover a number of urgent issues such as extreme poverty, inequality, education, global warming and climate change pointing to huge needs in countries around the world where urgent needs come up again and again.  Huge continents are currently suffering because of famine, poverty or war.  Millions of people are at the mercy of these terrible occurrences.


A new way of thinking:

It’s as if here in the West, even though I hear on the radio and see images on my television as to what is going on, in fact I have no real idea of what is actually happening in terms of the scale of human loss, injustice, life and death.  It can’t be good to be in an existence where I don’t go hungry and have a bed to sleep and at the same time ignore the plight of millions upon millions of people who need help.  



A better world for the future:

Sustainable Development Goals are able to bring to today’s children and young people a new way of perceiving and thinking about the world that we all live in.  The goals offer  subject material for the English Language Classroom and in this way children will be able to learn directly about global human needs relating to cultures and people from around the world.  In this way too, knowing about and having an in depth knowledge, children will be able to manifest an understanding and outlook that will help them on their life journey better able to address urgent development needs now and in the years ahead. 


Links for teachers: 



Tuesday 3 October 2017

Global Goals - ESL Lesson 1: End Poverty




Important information:

This blog's purpose is to share all of the United Nations 17 Global Goals while giving ESL English language lessons and information for each goal.   Readers will be able to know which goals are being taught by simply looking at the top part of the lesson page for this information. For example, the first lessons in this blog refer to the global goal entitled: End Poverty in all its Forms Everywhere, therefore this heading will be placed near the top of the lesson page of the blog while looking at that particular goal (please note that the goals may not be taught in any particular order).  Teachers please refer to: Teacher notes (1)   




End Poverty in all its Forms Everywhere


Global Goals - ESL lesson 1: South Sudan's terrible poverty and suffering


Lesson type
Vocabulary

Lesson aims: 
* Main:
To introduce the first United Nations Global Goal: End Poverty in all its forms everywhere and to look at one specific country's suffering and poverty: South Sudan.

* Subsidiary: 
To provide practice / fluency practice in the use of words taken from an article about South Sudan.  Reading practice.

Level:
Level: A2 - B1.   The content of the lesson is adaptable for all levels from beginners to advanced.  For lower or higher levels the template and procedure remains the same but the content would be changed.  Also, I have simplified the lesson a little by not including any additional exercises during the production part of the lesson(second half of the lesson) and want to keep the first few lessons in this blog as simple as possible.  



Put a picture on the board (or give out handouts of the picture) about poverty in South Sudan and the terrible situation of life and death in this country.
With the person next to you discuss: what do you think is happening in the picture? 

Length of time to carry out this task: 2 minutes

Student feedback: Students and teacher discuss what they think the picture is about
Length of time: 3 minutes



Picture for Task 1

Task 2

Tell the class that you want them to read a text.  But before reading it we will go through some vocabulary which is in the text.   

Explain the meaning of each word (vocabulary) and attempt to put the word into a context / meaning.  Pronounce the new word.  Then, ask the students to ‘say’ the word out loud several times (drill).  

Also, on the board give the form of the word, which is the syllable stress, noun, verb or adjective and also put the word into the context of a sentence:

Take between 5 - 10 minutes for this task


Vocabulary:
declared     destitute     holding off     catastrophe     consumed

De’clared: verb
Meaning: If you declare that something is true, you say that it is true in a firm, deliberate way.

Des’ti’tute: adjective
Meaning: Someone who is destitute has no money or possessions

Hold-off: phrasal verb
Meaning: if you hold-off something you delay doing it or delay making a decision about it

Ca’tas’tro’phe: noun
Meaning: An unexpected event that causes great suffering or damage

Con’sumed: verb
Meaning: If you are consumed with a feeling or idea it affects you very strongly indeed




Task 3

Ask the students to read the text (handouts) and while reading it to think about the answer to this question: What is generally happening in South Sudan? (this is reading for gist). 

The students have 2 minutes to read the text.

Ask your students to share their thoughts with other students.  After this the students will be able to share their answers to the question with the whole class in a feedback for two or three minutes.  During the 'feedbacks' use this time to explain in more detail to the students what is happening in South Sudan but make sure that you do not extend the 'feedback' time (TTT) of two to three minutes.  Also, make sure that each student who wants to share gets the chance to share even if it's only for a few seconds.  



Text for Task 3:

Fighting Famine in War–torn South Sudan
Correspondent of the CBS News, Scott Pelley, writes:


"In South Sudan, 5M people don’t know where their next meal is coming from and, of them, 100,000 are starving and face death.   If not for humanitarian efforts, millions could die.
 
A rare famine emergency has been declared in the youngest nation on Earth.  South Sudan, in East Africa, was brought into the world, in 2011, with the help of the United States.  But it’s one of the world’s least developed countries and civil war has left it destitute.  Five million people don’t know where their next meal is coming from and of them, 100,000 are facing death.  Holding off a catastrophe is the mission of the UN’s World Food Programme.  The WFP was an American idea, created in 1961, and the U.S. is still the largest donor.  Now WFP has launched on of its largest rescues ever but in South Sudan too many people are fighting for life. 
 
Josephine is seven and down to 24 pounds.  Hunger left her at the mercy of disease.  And now she’s being consumed by tuberculosis.  This is why TB used to be called consumption.  Josephine’s mother shooed away the 90 degrees, waiting to be seen by Dr Meroni Abraham.

Sudan was Africa’s largest nation, ruled from Khartoum by people of Arab heritage.  In the south, African tribes have rebelled since the 1950s.  And millions have died.  In a quest for peace, the Bush administration started humanitarian and diplomatic campaign.  Eleven billion dollars went into aid, and to train a South Sudanese government and security force.  Five years ago, there was hope.  Khartoum no longer ruled over them, and beneath them, there was oil".  












Task 4

Ask the students to read the text again but this time read it more slowly and while reading share with the person next to you what you think are the answers to these questions:

You have 5 minutes to read the text and answer the questions:

Questions:

1.    Where in the world is South Sudan?

2.    Why are so many people starving and dying in this country?

3.    Why has the World Food Programme become involved?

4.    Do you think the WFP are doing a good job?

5.    In the Bush administration how much money went into aid?


Ss will have an 8 – 10 minute feedback regarding the questions.   The students and teacher share the answers and their thoughts. 




Task 5

The ss have learnt some new words as well as their pronunciation.  They also have some new knowledge about Africa and South Sudan.  

With this knowledge the ss go into groups of three and discuss for five minutes how do you think people can be helped in South Sudan?     Do you think that the West can help?  

Tell the ss: while talking please try to use some of the new learnt vocabulary learnt earlier by putting the vocabulary into the context of a sentence.   Refer the ss to the earlier handouts for vocabulary or put on the board once again the words learnt earlier so that the ss can relate to them first hand.  



Well done!  You have completed lesson 1


Next two lessons:

The next two lessons, lesson 2 - 3, will continue to look at the same life and death situation in South Sudan but this time we will look at a grammar point using the present and past simple verbs to analyse more closely what is happening in this country.  


Monday 2 October 2017

Teacher notes (1). Introduction to this blog

Free resources:


The lesson plans and resources in Raymond Van Neste's blog: Learn English by Thinking Globally are free for teachers and students of English language.  The purpose of the blog is to introduce the Global Goals to students or teachers of English Language as a rich resource for teaching and learning.


There are a total of 17 United Nations Global Goals and each has its own name relating to its own purpose such as to 'end poverty' or to work towards 'ending inequality' or 'global warming' (these are shortened versions of the full titles). All of the Global Goals will be looked at one by one (in this blog) so that they can all be reviewed and put into the perspective of one or more English language lessons which covers both grammar and skills. 


In addition, this blog will include articles and information which might go toward in some way the educational need for change.

Finally, this blog has as its intention the hope that it will help students and teachers or anybody interested in how to go about change in terms of sustainability and need.


Raymond Van Neste 
22 May 2018




Method

The blog will give short lessons (all levels but particularly levels A2 - B1) with summaries of the role of the ESL teacher, focusing upon grammar and skills.  At the same time it will use subject matter that can be utilised for this purpose.   I would like to start to integrate the Sustainable Development Goals into these ESL English language lessons (as the main subject for the lessons) and I will do it gradually as time goes on and as I too learn more and more about global issues. 

In addition, I'll be putting links from the British Council - Learn English Teens - into the blog (permission given).   I'll give my own knowledge of the grammar point or skills and additionally add links as a great resource for learning in today's world.  












Lesson Plans and Sustainable Development Goals in the ESL classroom:

Since graduation as a CELTA teacher I've had a chance to get a feel for the way that language is taught to students of ESL.   I'm fascinated by the current debate about Sustainable Development Goals' and their use in the ESL language classroom Sustainable Development Goals which are currently being adopted by the United Nations are indeed a worthy subject for focusing upon when teaching.  Off course not all students will want to learn about such matters and might feel that more attention is being placed on the subject matter for a lesson and not enough on teaching English.  But as a qualified CELTA, ESL teacher I'm certain that good teaching will not allow this to happen.  



Material for Lesson Plans:

On my CELTA course I was taught to bring to each lesson not only a plan for each lesson but to integrate a specific 'subject' that would be used to focus either my grammar point or skills when giving a lesson.  For my teaching in the future I would like to bring to my students a set of subjects about global issues and to be familiar enough with them to be able to develop lesson plans around them.   Indeed, in relation to the Sustainable Development Goals there is a lot of material and interesting subject matter to last for a very long time for students and teachers to relate to if they want to. 



Focusing:

Also, CELTA taught me to make sure that lesson plans are kept to very specific points.   For example, if my subject happened to be about 'shopping habits or retail buying' then the lesson plan would focus only on one aspect of shopping habits or buying.  For example, I could focus upon one retailer's selling experiences or a buying experience.  In this way the student is helped to focus without having to be distracted by 'wider' information.  Also, in this way, as stated, I would think that there would be unlimited material for teachers when using global issues for the classroom.  


The Global Goals make a perfect contribution to ESL:

Again, global issues are ideal in the world of ESL because they can be adapted to the level of the student without having any of the knowledge (in relation to the global issue) becoming any less relevant or inaccurate in its content.  In a teaching class for beginners of English language then off course lots of pictures are useful along with a simple sentence structure.   

For advanced learners in reading (as a skill) for example, they would have advanced texts of the same subjects and it is always up to the teacher to make sure that enough research is carried out to enable lesson planning to happen successfully.  

Raymond Van Neste's blog: 'Learn English by Thinking Globally'