In this article Gergő Fekete, talks about his session ‘Global issues through visuals: the story of three case studies’
The 21st century has brought many changes to our life and these changes have not left the field of education unaddressed, either. As an EFL learner and now a fresh EFL teacher, I have observed two major changes in the way English classes work. One is the regular use of still and particularly moving images, be it a YouTube video or a simple photograph. The other one is the phenomenon we call globalisation, which permeates every aspect of our lives. My presentation aims to explore these two changes and present different ways to combine them in order to maximise students’ learning potential.
First, I will share a number of activities that revolve around images and build on creativity and communication, especially if you want to activate students’ pre-existing knowledge or kick off your lesson with a simple warmer. To give you a taste of these tasks, we will also try some of them during the presentation. Then, we will move on to a short video clip dealing with the children of the Gaza Strip and see how we can help students apply multiple types of knowledge and cognitive skills. Finally, we will focus on the documentary “Girl Rising,” which shares the story of nine girls facing barriers to education, such as early and forced marriage, sex-trafficking, and gender-based violence. This part of the workshop will feature activities that can help us exploit the film in terms of language and content, too. If you are interested to see how the film can provide students with the necessary knowledge, skills, and values needed to deal with global issues and encourage them to take action, come along!
NB: So far, I have used all my activities with secondary school students, but they are suitable for primary school learners and adult groups in language schools and at university, as well.
