Welcome to the fifth roadmap for the C2 Development Course (yep, we’re halfway!). Below, you’ll see the guiding question for this week – you’ll be reflecting on this through the various tasks, as well as in our live sessions. You then have three tasks to introduce you to the topic and text(s), as well as an optional task. It is recommended that you complete the first three tasks before you attend the live session. Although the tasks are designed to be completed in order, you can skip to the main text task if you are short on time.
Guiding question three: who should pay the price for a sustainable future?
Task one: how sustainable is your lifestyle?
Head over to the Greenpeace Find actions for you quiz to see how eco-friendly your lifestyle is. Don’t just do the quiz, though – as you’re doing it, reflect on your response to the questions. Are there any that you find yourself reacting strongly too? If so, why?
Task two: mitigating the Polar Bear Problem
From 2020 to 2023, Ben was lead tutor on the Language Teaching for the Planet course for teachers. It was designed for teachers who wanted to bring sustainability issues into their everyday teaching, but didn’t know where to start. While working on the course, Ben wrote (and spoke, at length) about the Polar Bear Problem, where coursebooks often choose irrelevant topics (such as the plight of the polar bears and global warming) for their texts on climate change and sustainability.
The problem is much like when Ben tried to teach a class in Ghana about Scott of the Antarctic: the children have no frame of reference for the text, its topic entirely irrelevant for them, and so they switch off. On the course, we argued that teachers need to bring local sustainability issues into their classrooms in order to hook their children and inspire them to talk about it.
Your task: what are 3-5 environmental or sustainability issues which affect you, or people around you, in your area? Think about:
- What the issue is;
- Why the issue affects you or those around you;
- What, or who, is causing the issue;
- What do you, or the people around you, currently do to try to solve (or at least mitigate) the issue?;
- What would be a long-term solution to the problem? What sacrifices would this imply?
Task three: the main text
This week we’re exploring the topic of Climate Justice through our main text and (optional) assignment. Watch this video, and answer the questions that follow. The video has subtitles embedded – not a bad thing, I think, as these are young people with some challenging accents!
- Which story resonated with you the most? Why do you think that is?
- Which stories did you find surprising?
- What’s your reaction to the video? Why do you think you feel that way?
- What language features (lexis, grammar, or pronunciation) did you find challenging?
Optional written task
A leading digital magazine, The Global Perspective, is running a series entitled The Burden of Change. They have invited contributors to submit articles exploring the economic and moral responsibilities associated with the climate crisis.
Write an article for the magazine in response to the following guiding question: Who should pay the price for a sustainable future?
In your article, you should:
- Evaluate whether the financial burden should fall primarily on corporations, governments, or the individual consumer.
- Discuss the concept of “climate justice” concerning the divide between developing and developed nations.
- Provide a compelling call to action that suggests a realistic first step towards making progress in this area.
This week in the Dev Sesh…
In our live session this week, we’ll explore sustainability in more depth and focus on some of the lexical nuggets from that video you’ve been watching. We’ll also explore micro-reading & micro-writing tasks, showing you how short, sharp bursts of written work can help you push your English level further.
