Fair Trade

What's fair trade? On the 12th May the World Fairtrade Day is celebrated. Watch the following video of the campaign.

Do you have any fair trade product at home? which one?

Make an advertisement campaign for one of these products (remember to include a logo, a slogan and a description of the product).

One of the tools to improve poor countries situation is microfinace. To learn more about it watch the following videos.

  

Education is the key

Education is the key to solve most of the world's problems and two teenagers from Glasgow have created a campaign to make the world leaders aware of this reality and spread the message about the importance of the millenium goals. With this campaign they have won the Steve Sinnott Award for Young Campaigner.

Read the following article by The Guardian and have a look at their campaign.

Eilidh Naismith and Billy Davidson, from Glasgow, are the Send My Friend to School Young Ambassadors for 2012.

They will be helping to get UK kids involved in the campaign, reminding world leaders of their goal of getting all children in school by 2015.

Eilidh and Billy, both aged 15, travelled to Malawi in February 2012 to meet children in and out of school, and find out for themselves about what stops young people getting an education.

They'll be helping to spread the word, speaking in Parliament and at conferences, and encouraging schools and youth groups to take part in Send My Friend to School’s ‘Go for Gold!’ activities this year.

With 67 million children still missing out on school world leaders need to Go for Gold! to meet their target of getting all children an education by 2015. Young Ambassadors, Yas and Nav, introduce Send My Friend to School's Olympic-inspired theme for this year, and show what they learned on their visit to Guatemala last year.

Of these 67 million children more than half are girls. Watch the film to find out what you can do to help and join the campaign to give every child the chance to get an education.

Look at me

This video is an adaptation from Todd Alcott's poem. Can you imagine a title for it?

Then watch the video again and pay attention to the images you see, are they familiar to you? Make a list of the items you see.

Are you supersticious?

Have you realized that yesterday it was Friday 13th? Has anything special happened to you?

Does this date fill you with fear, anxiety and foreboding - or is it simply another day on the calendar? Whether you're superstitious or not, try to find out why Friday the 13th is such an infamous date.

Listen to this audio and answer the questions you will find in this website. Then try to learn the useful words and expressions that you will find here to talk about superstitions and Friday the 13th and do this quiz.

Finally, learn about some other superstitons with this slideshow by The Independent.

April Fools' Day

Listen to the following podcast by the BBC and answer the questions below:

Animation réalisée sur le site http://www.komcitiz.com

• When is April fools' day celebrated?
• What does it consist of?
• Until what time are people in the UK allowed to play jokes?
• Learn the following vocabulary:

practical joke - hoax - spoof story - taken in by - gullible - prank

The origins of April Fools Day are not clear but it is known that the tradition of practical joking and mischief-making dates back to Ancient Roman times. It would appear that the festival is closely related to the coming of Spring.
Ancient Romans and Celts celebrated a festival of practical joking at about the time of the Vernal Equinox, as do millions of India's Hindus.
The French also mark 1 April but instead of April Fools they call it Poisson d'Avril (April Fish).
 
Now watch two of the most famous hoaxes broadcasted by the BBC.
 

 
 

 
If you want to play a practical joke on a friend here you have some ideas...
 

 
This is the video if you want to make the Emotion Test.
 

International Women's Day

On March 8th we celebrate the International Women's Day.

Watch these videos and prepare a brief speech expressing your own point of view. You can use the following questions to think of some ideas.

• Why women's day?
• But is there really inequality between men and women? (access to education, health care, working conditions...)
• Why is it that women's equality is said to be important for all peoples and not just an issue for women?
• Is the head of state/government in your country a man or a woman?
• Has a woman ever been the head of state/government in your country?
• What is the highest office held by a woman in your country?
• Can you name a woman head of state currently in office?
• Why do you think there are and there have been so few women in positions of power?
• As heads of state, would women take different decisions than men?
• Would it make a difference in the world -- in the poverty, violence and inequality that afflict the world -- if there were more women in parliaments and other national and international bodies?

Leap Day

On the 29th February we had a leap day. An extra day in life. Do you know why? Follow this link to learn about leap day traditions.

Now listen to this audio by the BBC about what special things people do on days like this.

What would you do on a leap day?