martes, 29 de noviembre de 2011

Deforestation. Let's reflect!

Task 1: Find similarities and differences between this video and the video on global warming, polar bears. (focus on genre/text type)
Task 2: Reflect and share your opinion. What similarities and differences can you find between the situations faced by polar bears and Argentinian aborigines?
Task 3: Read the following newspaper article about Argentinian aborigines living in the Impenetrable Forest. The title affirms that "they suffer neglect". Can you find more words which express their sufferings?  After underlying the words in the text, create a word cloud using WORDLE. (exploitation,diseases, poverty, malnutrition- some of the words which students may recognize and take into account)

NEWSPAPER ARTICLE.

Argentina's forest people suffer neglect
By Daniel Schweimler
BBC News, Argentina
The Toba are one of the few remaining indigenous groups in Argentina. They live in The Impenetrable Forest, the poorest area in the poorest province of the country.
The early Spanish settlers wrote about the Tobas saying they were a fierce people, hardened by an inhospitable terrain.
They killed those who dared stray into what became known as the Bosque Impenetrable, the Impenetrable Forest.
The Toba are a tiny minority in Argentina, with only 18,000 people
But there is little sign of that fierceness today in a community ravaged by years of neglect and exploitation.
At the state-run hospital in the town of Castelli at the entrance to the forest, tired, wizened Tobas sit on dirty sheets in fly-infested wards, staring blankly at nothing, waiting to die.
These are the original Argentines, their straight, dark hair and brown skin in marked contrast to the descendants of European immigrants who live in the cities.
Poverty and Malnutrition
Many look much older than they are, and are suffering from tuberculosis or the effects of Chagas disease, caused by a parasitic insect.
These are illnesses with their roots in poverty and all the patients are much thinner than they should be, many too emaciated to be operated on.
The families who brought them here, often from long distances, sit with them since they have nowhere else to go and have little or no money for food.
Many Toba are suffering from TB, Chagos disease, or malnutrition
In recent months, it has been reported that some Toba have died from malnutrition, something those in the capital, Buenos Aires find hard to accept in a country where the economy is growing at the rate of 8% a year.
Rolando Nunez runs the Nelson Mandela Centre which distributes food to the remote communities deep in the forest.
The forest, with its rutted dirt roads and thick vegetation is, in parts, still pretty impenetrable. Until recently, few had much desire to go there.
Mr Nunez accuses the local and national authorities of blatant neglect and says they manipulate the official figures to make the situation appear better than it is.
He accuses the authorities of what he calls a gradual genocide.
The director of the hospital, Raul Romero, talked of doing the best he could with limited resources.
Many Toba still live in primitive mud and stick huts
In the provincial capital, Resistencia, health minister Dr Ricardo Mayol, said the Toba often spurned their offers of help, checking out of the hospitals without being treated.
The authorities provided emergency food where it was needed, he said, and many of those who reportedly died of hunger had in fact been suffering from other diseases.
TB Survivor
Juan Sosa lives in a small hut made of mud and sticks in a clearing in the forest. He speaks Spanish with difficulty and occasionally turns to a Toba translator for help as he describes how he recently contracted tuberculosis and prepared to die.
The tears run down his cheeks as he tells me of the arrival of food aid from the Nelson Mandela Centre which enabled him to build himself up and fight the disease.
All we want is respect from the government
Juan Sosa
The mud and stick house he lives in has a straw roof and provides little protection from the relentless heat that batters Chaco province in the summer.
The tiny house is home to 16 members of his family.
Juan hugged me as I left, touched that anyone should be interested in his plight after so many years of neglect.
"All we want is respect from the government," he said. "Nothing more."
I later learnt that this man with almost nothing had offered to kill and cook a kid goat for us.
The Toba hunt and gather wild fruits. But the growth of soya production in recent years has enticed farmers to the region in search of new lands to cultivate.
As we were driving in, trucks carrying freshly chopped quebracho trees, much sought-after as quality hardwood timber, were driving out.
Deforestation
The local branch of the environmental organisation, Greenpeace, has warned that massive deforestation is threatening some native groups with extinction.
To make matters worse, the traditional cultivation of cotton in Chaco, which used to provide the Toba with seasonal work, is being replaced by less labour-intensive soya production.
The impenetrable forest is becoming less impenetrable and with it the Toba are losing their lands and livelihoods.
Many have emigrated to the cities where large communities struggle to earn a living in burgeoning shanty towns.
There are about 18,000 Toba. Argentina has one of the smallest indigenous communities in the Americas, making it difficult for them to find a voice and maintain their language and customs.
And this while neighbouring Bolivia has an indigenous president in Evo Morales, and aboriginal people elsewhere are winning battles over land rights and finding pride in their cultural heritage.
At the tiny Resistencia airport there is a shop selling trinkets made by the Toba: cheap ashtrays and badly made bows and arrows.
The salesman, himself a Toba, told me that if I bought something, I would be taking the spirit of his people home with me.
Just then, my flight back to Buenos Aires was called and I turned to leave.
He caught my eye imploring me to buy something, anything, then with a smile threw his arms in the air in resignation.
We both knew that a bow and arrow with the words "Province of Chaco" printed on them were not going to change anything.
From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Thursday 27 September, 2007 at 1100 BST on BBC Radio 4. Please check the programme schedules for World

lunes, 28 de noviembre de 2011

Global Warming: emotions (possible production after watching the video)

Wordle: global warming EMOTIONS

Teaching Sequence. 5th year, Secondary school.

Planning for classroom implementation (six-hour lesson)
PARTICIPANT: GOMEZ LOPETEGUI, Viviana Pamela.
CLASS: 5th NUMBER OF STUDENTS: 25
MODALITY: Natural Sciences.
ESTIMATED TIME: six periods.
CHOSEN GENRES: video advertising; information and scientific reports.
RESOURCE MATERIAL: Internet.
AIMS:
To raise awareness of:
• The discourse in scientific reports.
• How information can be transmitted in different ways, through different genres and text types.
• How different genres can have a different impact on the audience.

OBJECTIVES:
• To understand how advertisings can persuade people.
• To reflect on the effectiveness of audiovisual materials.
• To compare different types of genre.
• To reinforce contents and skills of other subjects, acquiring contextualized language items and taking a positive attitude towards the foreign language.



Lead – up activities
First, students will be introduced to the topic (Global Warming) through a video advertising which shows a polar bear loosing his home, due to the loss of glacial territories.
(I've used A TUBE CATCHER. It's really fast! =-) )

Then, I will ask students about the impact of the video on them, trying to focus on their immediate emotions, feelings and thoughts. After sharing their feelings, they will be asked to create a word cloud with WORDLE including the words which reflect their immediate emotions.
(expected words) Pity- sympathy- sadness- fear, etc.
After that, I will ask them to think about the elements of the video which make their emotions or feelings emerge. In that way, I will make them think about the different persuasion strategies used (music, images, etc.) They will watch the short video again, if necessary. The idea of this task is to turn the attention to the effectiveness of audiovisual materials, the impact of this genre on the audience and the different persuasion strategies applied. Afterwards, I will turn students’ attention to the legend which appears at the end of the video: ‘Global Warming. When you feel it, it’s already too late’. I will try to help them to discover the topic, by means of asking questions about the images they have seen on the video and the transparent or familiar words which are part of the final legend. Then, they will also activate their previous knowledge about the topic (this group of students is supposed to have information about global warming, since it is a topic dealt in the subject Earth Sciences)
After introducing the topic through the video, students will use their previous knowledge and critical thinking in order to classify some causes and consequences about global warming. The idea of this task is to activate students’ previous knowledge and to provide them with necessary concepts and ideas in the foreign language.

 Look, read and classify these concepts into CAUSES and CONSEQUENCES of global warming.


Burning of fossil fuels: pollution. 
Rising sea levels.
Deforestation.
Rising temperatures.
Rising population. Sea-ice melting.


After checking the previous classification with the whole class, I will invite them to add more causes and consequences to the lists.

Procedure:
In the next activity, students will work with the information report taken from a BBC page. This task will involve their comprehension skill, since they will be required to read different sections of an information report, so as to choose the appropriate title for each. To help students understand content, I will remind them to pay attention to visual support, familiar or transparent words and references.
 Read the report and choose the correct titles for each section.
List of titles. There is an extra title!
1) What is being done about it?
2) What is the 'ozone layer' got to do with global warming?
3) How are extra greenhouse gases produced?
4) Is global warming bad?
5) What are the greenhouse gases?

……………………………………(Title)
The earth is naturally warmed by rays (or radiation) from the sun which pass through the earth's atmosphere and are reflected back out to space again.
The atmosphere's made up of layers of gases, some of which are called 'greenhouse gases'. They're mostly natural and make up a kind of thermal blanket over the earth.
This lets some of the rays back out of the atmosphere, keeping the earth at the right temperature for animals, plants and humans to survive (60°F/16°C).
So some global warming is good. But if extra greenhouse gases are made, the thermal blanket gets thicker and too much heat is kept in the earth's atmosphere. That is when global warming is bad.
……………………………………………. (Title)
Greenhouse gases are made out of:
• water vapour
• carbon dioxide
• methane
• nitrous oxide
• ozone
• chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)
They are all natural gases, but extra greenhouses gases can be made by humans from pollution.
…………………………………… …….. (Title)
Extra greenhouse gases are produced through activities which release carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and ozone CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons). These activities include:
• Burning coal and petrol, known as 'fossil fuels'
• Deforestation.
• Animal waste which lets off methane

…………………………………………. (Title)
The United Nations has meetings where world leaders agree on what to do about global warming.
Every five years, the Earth Summit happens.
In 1997 there was an Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and in 1997, an agreement was made at the UN Conference on Climate Change in Kyoto, Japan, to cut the amount of gases that industries make.
Leaders agree the world can cut the amount of carbon dioxide that is released into the atmosphere by changing the way power is produced too.
In February 2003, the British Government set out its plans to produce electricity using "greener" ways.
After checking the selection of titles with the whole class, I will drive students’ attention to the main characteristics found in the written report. I will expect their answers. Later, they will be required to spot the differences between the video and the written material regarding the following aspects:
 Intended audience.
 Audience’s reaction.
 Information included.
 Purpose.
(Oral work: even when students use their mother tongue to discuss these aspects, this task provides them with the opportunity to raise awareness of the main characteristics of each genre).
The next task will require students to apply the knowledge built up to here, and it will be used later to raise their awareness of the passive voice construction (focus on grammar)
 Choose the right concepts to fill in the blanks. Re-read the report if necessary.
Global warming- The Earth’s correct temperature- Extra greenhouse gases- Fossil fuels.
a- ______________________ are produced by human activities which generate pollution.
b- ______________________ is produced by extreme rising temperatures.
c- ______________________ are produced by the burning of coal and petrol.
d- ______________________ is produced by sun’s rays.

(Once we check the fill-in the blanks activity, I will make questions related to sentence construction, guiding students so that they can focus on the noun phrases acting as subjects and the use of verbs. They will also be guided so as to discover the function of the exponents: expressing certainty. Having a repeated pattern will also help them to discover the passive voice construction).


Round- up activity.

To conclude this teaching sequence on global warming, I will ask students to think and search for possible solutions to the problem. They will be given a model to express the possible solutions. (Later, students will use their productions at this stage, so as to write a problem-solution text)

 What can be done? There are ways you can help cut greenhouse gases and help stop global warming. Read and add more.

Paper can be recycled to stop deforestation.
Fuel-efficient vehicles can be replaced by healthy modes of transport. Use your bicycle!


Systematizing language.

Students will be required to pay attention to the different constructions seen, so as to compare their elements and functions.

• Look at the examples again and circle the appropriate function: expressing certainty or probability?

Global warming can be stopped by recycling.
Certainty / Probability
Global warming is produced by extreme rising temperatures.
Certainty / Probability
Fossil fuels are produced by the burning of coal and petrol.
Certainty / Probability
Fuel-efficient vehicles can be replaced by healthy modes of transportation.
Certainty / Probability

Body Language.

http://www.slideshare.net/vivipgl/final-presentation-10370910

This is the PPS I created for my presentation at University. It's about an interesting topic for teachers, Body Language. We should be aware of those messages transmitted without words!
Viviana