It was lovely meeting David at the TESOL convention, as well as several other teachers who are interested in social justice issues. It’s encouraging to see that there are a lot of other people out there who have similar concerns, and we’re happy to have this chance to share what we presented and hopefully hear some of your suggestions.

Basically, social entrepreneurs are people who find creative solutions to pressing issues in their communities. It’s a theme that works well with ESL classes because there are a lot of authentic reading and listening sources available, it promotes critical thinking skills, and it offers students a chance to get involved in the world outside the classroom. It can also be a nice antidote to news-based lessons that focus on the problems faced by people around the world: for every problem, there’s someone working on a solution… and maybe we can help.

There were three main focuses of our presentation: Bill talked about an eight-week course on Social Entrepreneurship that he’s given to students in the advanced-level Business and Professional English (BPE) Program at Georgetown; Catharine talked about individual lessons that she’s given in intermediate-level ESL courses; and we both talked about coordinating student volunteering and fundraising projects.

In the Social Entrepreneurship course, students read about and discuss a variety of organizations, then do a site visit. This is followed by a volunteer project, and then the eight-week session is wrapped up with a poster presentation highlighting each student’s own (imaginary) NGO that addresses an issue in their home community. One of the teachers who attended our presentation mentioned that she’s done a similar final project, but she has her students produce a brochure instead of a poster, which is another interesting possibility.

Another teacher who attended our presentation mentioned that she’s found it difficult trying to organize a volunteer project for her students, especially where transportation isn’t readily available. This can certainly be a challenge, but it’s a lot easier if you can join forces with a colleague, and/or participate in an event on campus (this is also a great way for ESL students to get to know native speakers), and/or do something online–for example the class can vote on who to fund through Kiva.org.

If you’d like more information, you can:
Click here for our presentation handout. Page 2 has a list of recommended websites.
Click here for our presentation slides (with student photos removed, since they hadn’t given permission for them to be posted online).

Email us: Catharine Hannay, William Little – Intensive English Program, Georgetown University.

For a sense of how everything was organized, take a look at the slideshow.

The first activity I covered was a green orientation. This was an activity designed to familiarize students with green resources in their local community. One purpose of this was to enable them to make more environmentally responsible choices, and to follow whatever environmental beliefs they may have come to the English language program with. The two handouts we looked at during the presentation were the green orientation introduction and the green directory. This orientation was done as part of a larger project to green an English language program, and if you click on this page you can get loads more info on the larger project, including links to articles and podcasts. The other handouts used for the green orientation (which were not included during the presentation) were an FAQ that suggested possible answers to the questions on the introduction handout, and a set of roleplays and discussion questions that we used for review.

The next handout we looked at was a summary of the everyday action project. Please visit this page for more information on the project, including all of the handouts, along with an article I wrote for JALT’s Global Issues in Language Education newsletter.

Finally, we looked at a label reading activity. For more information on that project, along with additional handouts, please visit this page.

If you have any questions about any of these activities, please let me know. Feel free to email me or post in the comments. I’d also love to hear about other activities you’ve used to bring local environmental resources into the classroom.

I’ll post my materials after the talk.

This reading would make a great creative writing prompt. For example, students could write a descriptive passage about a place they know well being reclaimed by nature.

It rained a lot that spring. You woke in the morning
And saw the sky still clouded, the streets still wet,
But nobody noticed so much, except the taxis
And the people who parade. You don’t, in a city.
The parks got very green. All the trees were green
Far into July and August, heavy with leaf,
Heavy with leaf and the long roots boring and spreading,
But nobody noticed that but the city gardeners
And they don’t talk.
                                    Oh, on Sundays, perhaps you’d notice:
Walking through certain blocks, by the shut, proud houses
With the windows boarded, the people gone away,
You’d suddenly see the queerest small shoots of green
Poking through cracks and crevices in the stone
And a bird-sown flower, red on a balcony,
But then you made jokes about grass growing in the streets
And gags and a musical show called “Hot and Wet.”
It made a good box for the papers. When the flamingo
Flew into a meeting of the Board of Estimate,
The new mayor acted at once and called the photographers.
When the first green creeper crawled upon Brooklyn Bridge,
They thought it was ornamental. They let it stay.

That was the year the termites came to New York
And they don’t do well in cold climates—but listen, Joe,
They’re only ants, and ants are nothing but insects.
It was funny and yet rather wistful, in a way
(As Heywood Broun pointed out in the World-Telegram)
To think of them looking for wood in a steel city.
It made you feel about life. It was too divine.
There were funny pictures by all the smart, funny artists
And Macy’s ran a terribly clever ad:
“The Widow’s Termite” or something.
                                                                       There was no
Disturbance. Even the Communists didn’t protest
And say they were Morgan hirelings. It was too hot,
Too hot to protest, too hot to get excited,
An even African heat, lush, fertile and steamy,
That soaked into bone and mind and never once broke.
The warm rain fell in fierce showers and ceased and fell.
Pretty soon you got used to its always being that way.

You got used to the changed rhythm, the altered beat,
To people walking slower, to the whole bright
Fierce pulse of the city slowing, to men in shorts,
To the new sun-helmets from Best’s and the cop’s white uniforms,
And the long noon-rest in the offices, everywhere.
It wasn’t a plan or anything. It just happened.
The fingers tapped slower, the office-boys
Dozed on their benches, the bookkeeper yawned at his desk.
The A. T. & T. was the first to change the shifts
And establish an official siesta-room;
But they were always efficient. Mostly it just
Happened like sleep itself, like a tropic sleep,
Till even the Thirties were deserted at noon
Except for a few tourists and one damp cop.
They ran boats to see the big lilies on the North River
But it was only the tourists who really noticed
The flocks of rose-and-green parrots and parakeets
Nesting in the stone crannies of the Cathedral.
The rest of us had forgotten when they first came.

There wasn’t any real change, it was just a heat spell,
A rain spell, a funny summer, a weather-man’s joke,
In spite of the geraniums three feet high
In the tin-can gardens of Hester and Desbrosses.
New York was New York. It couldn’t turn inside out.
When they got the news from Woods Hole about the Gulf Stream,
The Times ran a adequate story.
But nobody reads those stories but science-cranks.

Until, one day, a somnolent city-editor
Gave a new cub the termite yarn to break his teeth on.
The cub was just down from Vermont, so he took his time.
He was serious about it. He went around.
He read all about termites in the Public Library
And it made him sore when they fired him.
                                                                               So, one evening,
Talking with an old watchman, beside the first
Raw girders of the new Planetopolis Building
(Ten thousand brine-cooled offices, each with shower)
He saw a dark line creeping across the rubble
And turned a flashlight on it.
                                                      “Say, buddy,” he said,
“You’d better look out for those ants. They eat wood, you know,
They’ll have your shack down in no time.”
                                                                             The watchman spat.
“Oh, they’ve quit eating wood,” he said, in a casual voice,
“I thought everybody knew that.”
                                                            —and, reaching down,
He pried from the insect jaws the bright crumb of steel.

I wanted to post some highlights from the letter below, but it’s all so great that I couldn’t bear to leave any of it out. You’ll just have to read the whole thing.

I hear a lot of politicians, reformers, and even educational administrators talk about the importance of preparing students for the marketplace. I appreciate being reminded that this is not education’s ultimate goal.

My wife and I just watched a great documentary on PBS called My Life as a Turkey. It tells the story of naturalist and wildlife illustrator Joe Hutto and his experience as “mother” to a brood of wild turkeys. The video powerfully reveals the complex and sophisticated lives of wild turkeys. I think this should be required Thanksgiving viewing (preferably before dinner).

I’ve embedded the first chapter above, but you can watch the whole video for free on the PBS website. I would absolutely use this as part of a Thanksgiving lesson, or in a unit that addresses animal intelligence. In our program, we use the Quest series of books by McGraw-Hill. In Quest 1(which we use in some of our low-intermediate classes), there is a unit on biology that covers animal behavior, communication and learning. This video would fit in perfectly.

I think this is an effective way to get students to look at the ramifications of their consumption, and it also serves as a powerful reminder that slavery is not a thing of the past. I would absolutely use this in class, perhaps following it up with a reflective writing assignment.

Thanks Larry

Thanks Krista