We have lift off

We have lift off 

Today we launched our first lesson for Renewable English. A supplementary English course aimed at raising climae change awareness. 

The Lesson

In every 30 minutes (approx) lesson we are going to tackle a traditional course book unit and see what we can do to help the planet, in relation to said unit. Lesson 1 and 2 are taken from the Home unit we traditionally see in books. In the first of these lessons we aim to raise awareness about electricity consumption at home. The second aims to reduce water waste.  Each lesson will provide audio visual materials for learners and educators. 

The Course

The course comprises of 12 seperate lessons. Each with it's own focus. Such as fashion, the weekely shop and travel. Each of these 30 minute lessons will provide insight into what we can do to make a change. While it's obvious we need an awful lot of help from government and huge multinationals, our small steps can turn into great strides if everyone is on board. 

Social Media

We can be found across various social media platforms.

https://youtu.be/9J-0holGXrA

Facebook group

Instagram: @renewableenglish

Twitter: @renewablenglish

email: renewableenglish@gmail.com

Coming Very Soon

 

And so it Begins

A few months back I was a week away from posting my short course aimed at climate change awareness and sustainability. 

Alas, things like paid work got in the way and my passion project I've been cooking up for quite a while had to take a back seat. I'm now fully prepped and ready to go. Before the Christmas holiday you'll your first class posted and ready to recycle. 

The Course

This course has been designed for teens, however, the message is universal and can easily be used with adult groups too. Each section has a focus on traditional units in textbooks. These classes will provide you with a CLIL based lesson (or in some cases two) which relate directly to the subject matter of the course book. For example most textbooks contain something about The Home. The first unit will have 2 lessons on that subject. Electricity Consumption and Water Waste.

If you feel your current text books could do with some supplementarty Climate Change content, then this course will be perfect for you. 

The Classes

Every lesson will have its own worksheet, that can be viewed online. Let's not waste paper when we don't need to. They're going to be posted in a format which can be used by both teachers and students.

 

With each skill tested throughout the course,with various reading and vocab tasks added to the interviews and videos provided. The classes will last an hour with a planet promise and practical project to close.  

At first it will be a twice monthly course but I am hoping to go live with each lesson in webinar format by unit 3. 

All materials will be available from the description page on youtube.

Unit 1 The Home, Lesson 1 Electricity Cosumption

In the first class we look at what we can do at home to reduce the impact made by the production of electricity. One key aim in this section is to redirect the focus of why we save energy at home from that of a financial one to a more conciencious view. 

We look closely at our Carbon Footprint, how we get electricity and we tackle some mind blowing numbers when looking at our carbon emissions. 

The Reasons Behind Renewable English

Hello and welcome to Renewable English.

The idea really started back in 2016. I spent a few years working in a private school not long ago where nothing was done in any way shape or form about changing habits. Air conditioners were left on in rooms which were unoccupied, and I was seen as being crazy for suggesting people bring a bottle to work instead of using 7 or 8 plastic cups a day. The final straw for me (pun intended) was when the head of year openly mocked my attempts to heal something that didn’t even exist.  

It drove me crazy; it was 2018 and there were educated people still denying the existence of climate change. It’s time we stopped asking people if they believe in in climate change and start asking if they understand it. 

Inspiration isn’t hard to come by when it comes to climate change activists. A term that, in my opinion, shouldn’t need to exist. A two decades we had Al Gore. Then Leonardo Di Caprio brought his ideas forward and now we have Greta Thunberg. Climate Change, Global Warming, The Greenhouse Effect. Whatever you want to call it has been on the spectrum since I was at school (that was quite a while ago) yet we are now left clinging to last hopes. It is the 11th hour and things need to change on both a micro and a macro scale. 

Something a huge number of people are currently doing within the ELT industry and across the globe of course are trying to raise climate change awareness and of course change habits. The ELT footprint group for example, are taking huge strides in raising awareness and it was a chat with one of its founder members, Ceri Jones at the FECEI conferences (the first paperless conference I’ve ever spoken at) in 2019 that really got me thinking.  

Why is it course books always have 1 unit on the environment? Any why is it that unit is always about plastic and recycling? Of course, we need to do our bit in these areas but that simply isn’t enough. The subject becomes tiresome. There is a kind of double failing here in that students have “early closure” that is they are already sick of this climate change unit by the time they’re really old enough to properly understand it and see how each and every person on the planet can make a difference. Especially if we all try to make that difference.  

Secondly these units aren’t enough to really address the situation. What Ceri and I spoke about, albeit briefly, and what my wife and I often speak about is raising awareness with every unit we do. So, I’ve created this course to run alongside most coursebooks and they’re most traditional unit titles. It’s aimed at ages between 10-16 with a level of between a2 and b1. However, as the topic is so universal you can obviously adapt it to your students' needs.  

The materials will be available free to download in PDF. Feel free to follow me on twitter and even subscribe to this channel. I’ll be trying to get a Renewable English Episode out every week and they’ll be supplemented by some regular training videos.   

If you’re a student doing the lessons then feel free to press pause to complete the activities whenever,  If you’re a teacher please do get back to me with any feedback and feel free to send on any project videos your students do (if they have permission) or post them in our closed Renewable English Facebook group.