25th NOVEMBER, INTERNATIONAL DAY FOR THE ELIMINATION OF VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

Is this the first time your students hear about this date? Ask them and if this is the case, start from here. Let   students read the introductory passage to the lesson plan  and after reading it, ask them to answer the following question in pairs:

"Why is November the 25th the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women?" 

Once students know about the ultimate goal of the international campaign to end  gender-based violence, tell them that you are going to focus on "Teen Dating Violence". Below these lines, I will be providing you with different activities for you to choose  depending on the number of sessions you wish to spend. 

One of the many ways to work on this topic is through interactive resources. A very powerful website is "That's not cool": it is dedicated to decreasing teen dating violence due to technology, and  increasing awareness for healthy teen relationships online. The same as in the previous stage, you can start with a question: "What is the difference between a healthy and an  unhealthy relationship?"  Ask them to brainstorm  ideas in pairs and represent them in a visual  way they choose. For example:

After sharing their concepts of healthy versus unhealthy relationships, tell them that they are going to play an interactive game called "Coolnotcool". This interactive  quiz engages teens in a dialogue about teen dating abuse by putting the power in their hands. By doing the quizz, students will review  some  fictional dating scenarios and  decide for themselves whether those interactions are ‘cool’ or ‘not cool.’ 

If you are into  Q & A, you can explore the Speak Up section from "That's not cool" and let students spend some time reading the questions and answers. Encourage them to take a stand on the issues and add a question to the list on the page. 

For those  of you who are ready to develop  some more sessions on this topic, which would be well worthwhile, this pdf contains several activities which will enable students to gain an insight into healthy relationships - the ultimate prevention against abuse. 

Earth Day 2020

Earth Day  is an annual event celebrated around the world on April 22 to demonstrate support for environmental protection. First celebrated in 1970, it now includes events coordinated globally by the Earth Day Network  in more than 193 countries.

On Earth Day, April 22, 2020, we have two crises: the climate crisis and  the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.  The latter reminds us of what’s at stake in our fight for the planet. 

What can our teaching tribute be on this 50th Earth Day 2020? I would like to share a simple lesson plan so that our students reflect on the topic and work on two skills of the language: reading and writing: 

• Ask students to test their knowledge of the Earth by taking one of the quizzes they can find here.
• Send them a copy of this worksheet  and tell them that they should fill it in. Set a deadline so that you can collect all worksheets in a few  days.
• Ask each  student to  write  his /her answer  to a pair of  questions another student posed. 
• Collect all answers, do the necessary corrections and share the questions and answers  with  all students. 
• Finally, ask each student to write a paragraph about the most impressive fact they have learnt by doing this activity. Encourage them to suggest a possible way-out to the issue they have written about. 

I hope you will have a Happy Earth Day. 

Stay safe. 

Free United Nations (UN) course on Climate Change

UN Climate Change Learning Partnership and Harwood Education have launched the UN Climate Change Learn Teacher Academy to support and inspire teachers worldwide to bring innovative forms of climate change education into classrooms. 


They provide you with information on a range of related topics so that you will feel confident to deal with them in class.  The topics are:

1.  Climate change Science
2.  International Legal and Policy Framework to address Climate Change
3.  Climate change adaptation
4.  Climate change mitigation
5.  Climate change Finance
6.  Planning for Climate Change 

 These short courses can be done at your own pace and after completing them you can receive a UN CC:Learn Accredited Teacher badge. You can access further information about the course here. 

World Water Day 2019 on March 22nd

What is World Water Day?  World Water Day serves to raise awareness about water issues such as sanitation problems and water shortages in many parts of the world today.

What can we do in our classrooms to foster this awareness among our students?

I would suggest spending at least a session to watch the following video and reflect on this serious issue:

While  students are watching the video, you can ask them to take notes using this Cornell note-taking template.

If you wish to develop a gap-fill activity, click here.

You can access the complete video transcript from this link.

In any of the choices above, I would start by pre-teaching vocabulary.  First, you can create a word cloud with the essential words and interact with students to see if they know the words. This is a word cloud I have created. If students need further  help and you want to provide them with  definitions of the words, you can use this worksheet I have prepared. 

After working on the essential vocabulary as we described above, you can ask students to work in pairs and retell the content of the video using at least  5  key  words from the list. Finally, some pairs would read their versions of the story  aloud to their peers. By doing this final activity students will be developing their listening and speaking skills as they are used in real-life, that is, combining them as speakers of a language do. 

PISA 2018: an opportunity to develop life skills in our classrooms

Global competence is defined in PISA as ‘the capacity to examine global and intercultural issues, to take multiple perspectives, to engage in open, appropriate and effective interactions with people from different cultures and to act for collective well-being and sustainable development’.”

It is obvious that   global competence is not only developed at school. However,  schools play a crucial role in helping young people to develop global competence and contribute to more inclusive societies. I must say that our multicultural  schools are already paying close attention to intercultural sensitivity and respect but  much more needs to be done to share internationally successful models of education that build bridges across cultural differences. 

For the first time, PISA 2018 includes both assessment and background questionnaires on the Global competence.

The assessment will be based on scenario-based tasks. The tasks simulate activities that teachers can facilitate in the classroom or life situations that 15-year-olds can experience, they draw on different areas of global education (e.g. education for sustainable development, human rights education, intercultural education), have different levels of complexity, and require the activation of one or more cognitive processes.

The background questionnaires completed by students, teachers and school principals gather information about the conditions that may enable or hinder the development of students’ global competence. Students will be asked to report how familiar they are with global issues; how developed their linguistic and communication skills are; and how much they differ in attitudes such as adaptability and respect for people from different cultures. 

You can access the  file " Preparing our youth for an inclusive and sustainable world" here  and  very practical resources and case studies  are supplied by  the platform   Global Dimension.

Apart from welcoming the inclusion of the Global competence in PISA 2018, I would  like to provide teachers with some resources on all competences included in PISA 2018. Click on the links below to access the pdf files with the sample test items:

-  Science competence:  PISA 2015  Released field trial cognitive items 

-  Mathematics  competence:  PISA 2012 Released Mathematics items

-  Reading competence:  PISA Reading Literacy Items

-  Financial Competence:  PISA Financial LIteracy questions and answers

Related to this last competence, Young money platform is a very useful source of free downloadable  resources for those educators who teach topics related to Financial Education. 

Whether your school is participating in PISA 2018 or not, I believe that the resources above are a must if we wish to teach life skills and I am sure they will be very useful for CLIL teachers.

FAIRTRADE FORTNIGHT 2018

Fairtrade Fortnight is an annual promotional campaign which happens once every year, organized and funded by the Fairtrade Foundation to increase awareness of Fairtrade products. It is possible thanks to the work of  volunteers who support the goals of Fairtrade but who are also committed to the more general concepts of ethical trading or development issues. 

Therefore, why not enter the resources section and explore this topic further with your students?   You will  find everything you need to teach about Fairtrade in    your  school.  It is  a great opportunity to explore with learners many issues that face our global society:  where our food comes from, interconnectedness, sustainable development and the power of the individual. 

You can search for resources by location or by resource type. You can also use the interactive map if you prefer to search by region or filter by resource type, product focus or the age of your learners. Short films are also available.