Miscellany: Links

Weather and earthquakes
References and directories
The unusual
Learning Chinese
Gardening
General
Herbs
Soil
Seeds and plangs

Activities

Discussion
  1. As a class, discuss the concept of community. What defines a community? How do you know you are part of a community? Make a list of relevant vocabulary on the board.
  2. Discuss your own communities. Do you all live in the same community? If you are living on campus, compare your home communities. How are they the same? How are they different?
  3. Discuss the concepts of community involvement and community responsibility. Do people in your community have a sense of involvement and responsibility?
  4. Brainstorm ways in which your community could be improved. Make a list. Spend no more than five minutes on this step.
  5. From your list, choose the three most important ways in which your community can be improved. Feel free to debate the priority of improvements in your group.
  6. Share your findings with the class.

Extension: To be completed as homework.

  1. Using the lists generated by the different groups, hold a class election. 2-5 students run for 'community president'.
  2. Candidates have can prepare their stands as homework. They can communicate their ideas with classmates (voters) outside of class.
  3. Other students (voters) prepare questions to ask the candidate during a debate and/or news conference.
  4. In a later class, hold a debate and/or a news conference.
  5. Students vote for community president.
Cultural Assumptions, Expectations, and Clashes

Get into pairs or small groups.

Brainstorm what you know or what you've heard about how other cultures differ from your own.

Consider some of the following categories that are culturally influenced (you may add your own categories also):

  • food
  • family
  • friends
  • recreation
  • health
  • business
  • education
  • work

Choose two or three categories, and brainstorm about exceptional examples of how another culture differs dramatically from your own for each category. (You can use more than one culture for examples.)

Discuss what difficulties you would expect to have, if any, regarding your examples if you were to visit a country of that culture. How would you deal with the difficulties? How would you prepare for them?

Follow-up

  • Identify your own cultural assumptions regarding your examples. What does your culture take for granted?
  • Discuss what difficulties a foreigner might face in your culture if they were to live in it for an extended period.
Fashion combination
  1. Get into small groups.
  2. The teacher will assign you a specific part of the body for which to design a fashion. For example, you may have to design shoes for the feet, a hat for the head, glasses for the eyes, pant legs for the legs, etc.
  3. In your group, design a style for your group's body part. You can be as creative as you like. You might choose to be modern or old-fashioned; you might design for a young person, middle-aged person, or old person. It's all up to you.
  4. As a class, build the 'person' one group at a time.