Introduction
This article will present 3 environmental activities for ESL and EFL students.
Before describing how to implement these activities let us first answer 2 main questions:
- Why should we introduce environmental issues in the classroom?
- Why are environmental activities important?
Introducing environmental issues into EFL and ESL classes
The urgency of environmental problems has led to a quantum leap in the attention paid to green issues. The environment has become the subject of newspaper and magazine articles, radio and television reports, documentaries, and feature films. In this post, I present the rationale behind incorporating environmental issues into language teaching.
Why are environmental activities important for EFL/ESL students?
What have environmental issues got to do with language teaching? Shouldn’t language teachers confine their concerns to the teaching of grammar, vocabulary, and communication skills? Well, there are several compelling reasons for introducing the environment to the EFL and ESL classes.
Why should we devise environment activities for kids?
- The urgency of the environmental situation.
Animal extinction, deforestation, desertification, climate change, and other environmental problems are so pressing that they need a response from the educational community. As educators, we have an ethical responsibility to contribute to our students’ awareness of environmental issues and to foster students’ ability to make independent, responsible, and informed choices where the environment is concerned. - Environmental issues constitute a rich source of content.
If we are to use content (content-based instruction) as a starting point for language teaching, environmental problems can provide invaluable context for the integration of content into English language teaching. - Environmental issues are real.
Introducing environmental problems into language teaching classes links the classroom to the world at large. Learners will be able to write, read and talk about real issues. - Environmental issues are motivating.
Learners are fascinated by environmental problems such as the destruction of rainforests and animal extinction… - Environmental issues can be integrated into all school subjects.
The green issues can be integrated into science, history, geography, mathematics, art, and music. This helps bridge the gap between English language teaching and other school subjects. Learners gain academic knowledge and develop skills that can enhance achievement in all areas of the curriculum. - Environmental issues offer an opportunity for the integration of skills.
Environmental activities provide invaluable opportunities to carry out projects and tasks that integrate the four skills. (Here is an example of an integrative environmental activity.) - Environmental issues encourage discussion.
Learners are involved emotionally in the protection of the environment. This stimulates students to discuss problems, brainstorm solutions, and share reactions. - Environmental activities can be fun.
By engaging students to do tasks that focus on what we can do to help save the earth, we lead our students to be active, lively members of a community, NOT depressive, defeatist minds. - Environmental activities are learner-centered.
It is learners who are engaged in the language teaching process. The teacher guides while the learners discover for themselves the environmental threats challenging the world.
How to implement environmental activities
For the implementation of environmental activities in EFL and ESL classes, a global approach must be held. This should involve the following:
- Awareness of the problems
- Concern about the environment so as to become motivated and work actively for its protection.
- Skills needed to identify and solve problems. This includes communication skills, cooperative problem solving, critical and creative thinking, and informed decision-making.
- Action. Students must be actively involved in doing something to remedy the environmental problems.
Three Environment activities for ESL and EFL students
The following activities are perfect for involving students to think about the dangers that the environment is facing and protect it.
The first two activities are for intermediate students. They involve learners to read a text to get a general idea and encourage them to suggest ways to reduce, reuse and recycle waste. The last one is for primary school students. It involves kids recycling plastic bottles by following written procedures.
1. Three R activity
- Level: Intermediate.
- Materials: A text about how to protect the environment.
- Objectives:
- To be able to get the general ideas of a text.
- To be able to think critically about environmental issues
- To be able to make suggestions about protecting the environment
- Timing: 40 minutes
What does 3 Rs Stand for?
The three Rs stand for Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle.
- Reduce: This refers to reducing the quantity of waste we produce.
- Reuse: Finding new uses for items that we would otherwise discard is what reuse is all about.
- Recycle: Turning something old and useless into something new and valuable is what recycling is all about.
How to implement the activity
1. Write this quote on the board:
The Earth has enough resources for our needs but not for our greed.
Mahatma Gandhi
2. Ask students to work in groups of four to read it, paraphrase it, and discuss the topic it raises.
3. Invite representatives of each group to report the outcome of the group discussion.
4. Ask students to read a text about how we can protect the environment and answer comprehension questions in groups:
5. Here is the link to the reading comprehension text (the comprehension questions are below the text, just follow the link):
7 Ways To Protect The Environment.
After class correction, invite the groups to complete the following chart with suggestions about reducing, reusing, and recycling waste.
| Ideas to reduce waste | Ideas to reuse waste | Ideas to recycle waste |
|---|---|---|
Here are some expressions they can use to make suggestions:
- I think we should…
- We suggest we should…
- We had better…
- What about…
- Why don’t we…?
2. Creating a poster
- Level: Intermediate.
- Materials: Pens, crayons, images representing the environment, sheets of paper.
- Objectives:
- To design a poster showing ideas about how to protect the environment
- To be able to make suggestions about protecting the environment
- Timing: 20 minutes
Another activity that involves the students in environmental issues is to invite them to create posters. This activity is perfect for visual learners who prefer to draw pictures and create graphs, and other visually appealing designs.
The 3 Rs activity above can be a perfect fit for a poster that educates people on how to protect the environment.
Students can do this activity in groups as a follow-up to the reading task described above.
The class agrees on the best poster to be displayed on the classroom wall or the school pinboard.
3. Recycling plastic waste
- Level: Primary students.
- Objectives:
- To be able to recycle a plastic bottle to make a pen stand.
- Materials: plastic bottles, scissors, cutter, glue, sheets of paper, crayons, pens.
- Timing: 20 minutes
Why has plastic become a worldwide issue?
Plastic waste is one of the most urgent problems nowadays.
Humans have relied on plastic as a cost-effective, adaptable, and long-lasting material. However, because the majority of plastic materials take hundreds of years to disintegrate, all of the plastic we generate ends up in the ocean, endangering marine life.
The amount of plastic on our planet — and the amount that is still being produced — is simply too much for us to handle. As a result, in order to ensure a safe and healthy future for our planet, we must modify our attitudes and behaviors toward plastic.
How to implement the activity
Young learners learn differently from adults. they are more kinesthetic. They prefer learning by doing things than focusing on language rules.
This activity involves the kids recycling a plastic bottle into a beautiful pen stand.
While going through the process of creating the pen stand, they are given precise instructions in English on how to proceed. Working in small groups may help them learn the meaning of the instructions:
The procedure:
- Take the label off of a plastic bottle.
- Rinse the bottle using soap and water.
- Cut the top part off the bottle with a box cutter or scissors.
- Tear some tissue paper into a piece that would fit on what remains of the bottle.
- Draw your favorite hero on the paper and write your name.
- Apply white school glue onto the bottle with a brush.
- Stick the drawing on it.
Follow-up
As a follow-up activity, the lesson may proceed as follows:
When the class has finished decorating their pen stands, they can practice the language by naming the items as they place them in the pen stand.
Conclusion
We as teachers will gain a lot by incorporating environmental issues into English language teaching. Our students will be motivated, will learn about real challenges facing the world, and most importantly will be actively involved in doing something to solve the environmental problems.
The above environment activities for students can be adapted and implemented according to your pupils’ needs.