One-stop - Give peace a chance

The following article by Lindsay Clandfield is taken from the MacMillan Education on-line teaching resource site.

Give peace a chance

Teachers like basing classes with younger learners on serious global issues such as peace. Sorry, I should say that teachers like the idea of basing their classes on serious global issues such as peace. We think it's important. Unfortunately, our students aren't always of the same opinion.

I've often felt that achieving world peace would be easier than getting my classes to talk about it. But we mustn't give up hope, and with September 21 being the UN's International Day of Peace now is a good time to try again. Here are some ideas.

A good start could be to write on the board "Peace is ..." and "Wars start because ...". Tell students to complet ethe sentences in as many ways as they can in five minutes. Compare afterwards and write these on the board. Use this to start a discussion.

You could do some research into recent peace slogans (a web search yielded Make Love not War; Peace on Earth; All Wars are Criminal; Let's Try Preemptive Peace). Give these to students and use them as a springboard to create a peace poster project. Students can make posters incorporatying their own slogans or poems.

It's also a great opportunity to bring out your favourite "peace" songs and do a song activity with the class. A master of the genre was John Lennon and his songs still work well with learners. How about getting your students to write their own version of one of his peace anthems? Give them the following frame to complete:

Everybody's talking about (think of six -isms that are common in today's society, eg capitalism, consumerism, terrorism ...)

This-ism, That-ism, ism, ism, ism, All we are saying is give peace a chance.

Everbody's talking about (think of names of eight words ending in -ation or ution, eg revolution, evolution, nations ...)

All we are saying is give peace a chance.

You and your class will have written a mini version of Give Peace a Chance. Play the original for them for comparison and, if you are feloing adventurous, sing it with them.