Author: WebEnglish.se

One hundred years ago, on the eleventh day of the eleventh month at 11 o’clock, the Armistice was signed to end the First World War. WebEnglish.se wants to give a tribute to those who have given their lives to ensure our freedom for generations, both then and ever since. My own grandfather died in  WWII. A few materials have been added to Teach by Calendar for those who would like to have a moment with their intermediate students to talk about the Great War and other wars that they may have been exposed to. Note, that there are now two links in Teach by Calendar on Nov. 11th: ‘Poppy Day’ is a lighter version of talking about the Remembrance Day, ‘Armistice Day’ is more about the actual ending of the war.

On Tuesday, the 6th of November, around 30% of the US citizens are going to vote and in the name of democracy decide the majority political party in both the House and the Senate. These elections will either strengthen Trump’s power or put both his past and future decisions under scrutiny. If you want to follow the American midterm elections with your students, WebEnglish.se has just updated the theme page on Elections as well as the theme page The USA Now. The latter will also be updated around and after the elections.

Today’s buzzword seems to be Witch Hunt, so WebEnglish.se recollected some old and new materials about the real Witch Hunt that took place in Salem, MA, in 1692, into a theme of its own. And talking about hunting, WebEnglish.se has added a link to the well-known series “Ghost Hunter” with auto-generated subtitles and fair quality in the updated Halloween 7-9. For younger students’ ghost stories, go to Halloween 1-6 that has also been updated for the season.

After the facelift that WebEnglish.se underwent during the summer, some users have asked where to find some of the links they earlier found in Speaking/Writing/Listening/Reading and so forth. Most of them are still there, collected under a new category called Skills. Everything that is not a Theme, Calendar date, nor a specific Digital Tool is found in Skills. Just like the other categories, the Skills are divided into four levels: Young Beginners, Elementary, Intermediate, and Teen Beginners. Once you have found your level, all the best-loved links are still there among many new ones, separated under numerous subcategories.

This week could be a good time to motivate some reluctant readers to start reading a real book, as it is Banned Books Week in the US. It’s an annual celebration of the freedom to read, being held September 23 – 29. The 2018 theme, “Banning Books Silences Stories,” is a reminder that everyone needs to speak out against the tide of censorship.

Interestingly, some of the favourites of many English students in Sweden appear in the list of 2017 that was released recently. WebEnglish.se has compiled a Banned Books Page with information and inspiration to start on the journey of becoming a Reader. To give your students an immediate taste of a classic banned book, you can download some free in COM Library.

P.S. In Sweden, we find it difficult to understand the concept of Banned Books, as Sweden is generally known to have very liberal views on literature. There is very little censorship over any publications in libraries nor in schools.

Thank you, Stanislava Overholt for the picture.

This term, I started (almost) all my classes with the same theme: the English Language. First, we explored the Indo-European language family and found many of my students’ languages there. Then we learned how English spread all over the world, starting with the early settlers to the New World, and how it has kept spreading after the WWII with American movies and music. Today, most of the world’s internet is in English and it is the lingua franca of business, travel, and world news.

Through this period, one group grew interested in British History, starting with Henry VIII, another decided to study more about Slavery and the other two are still to decide what the next step will be. I used resources from English Conquers the World and Colonisation of North America. Most of the links were collected into My Classes – The English Language.

The morning after the Swedish elections and still dreading the results of the American Midterm elections in November, I feel it’s time for some wake-up alarms to go off in our classrooms. WebEnglish.se has several suitable Theme Pages to choose from: No Bullying in Our School (4-9) for (lower) intermediate level students, and Tolerance (7-9), Malala Yousafzai (8-9), and best of all, Racism (9) for intermediate level students.

Furthermore, there is a whole Theme Page about Martin Luther King Jr (4-9), another about Civil Rights (7-9), and yet another about Human Rights (9). If you only have 15 min to spare, you could have your students watch Maysoon Zayid, an Arab-American comedian talking about her 99 problems… cerebral palsy is just one of them.