Teachers' Zone 5
International Women’s Day 2021 is bound to be different. Keeping in mind the painful events that we have been witnessing since October 2020 the very idea of IWD, which is to celebrate women’s social, economic, cultural and political achievements or rally for women’s equality is taking on a whole new meaning. To some of us it might be yet another reason why we should incorporate IWD and its 2021 theme #ChooseToChallenge in our English lessons.
Here comes a list of possibly helpful ideas if you wish to run a lesson on International Women’s Day.
1.Do you need to revise present /past tenses while being communicative? Or maybe you have been discussing how to write an article recently? Why not ask your students to interview women who have made a positive difference for women in your community? After all it may be a successful school president who has made a change in your school or an inspirational relative. The follow-up activity is to write an article about them for a school magazine.
2.Do you need to practise reading? I suggest using that link: https://www.rd.com/list/most-inspiring-women-alive-today . Here you can find 16 texts about inspiring women alive today. Using the jigsaw approach to reading we can involve students in speaking and encourage them to develop their summarizing skills.
We can also focus on one biography only and build our lesson around it. Here I have found some tips how to organize it most successfully https://britannica.co.uk/blog/classroom-activity-international-womens-day/.
3. Do you need some more ideas? When you see https://eslholidaylessons.com/03/international_womens_day.html you will know how to use a short text in a variety of ways that will prepare your students for exam-like tasks.
Happy International Women’s Day!