One of the lessons the students here at OISE enjoy most is the News Review, which takes place every morning at 8.45. Is an opportunity to them to listen to, watch and discuss the most important news events of the day. And of course this week there is one story which is dominating the headlines – Hurricane Sandy. This afternoon New York has been declared a major disaster area, after storm Sandy smashed into the US East Coast, causing flooding and cutting power to millions. The students have been glued to the images of the destruction Sandy has caused and the conversations at coffee break and lunch time have all been about the people have New York and the difficulties they are facing.
However there are one group of people who are very excited about the story of hurricane Sandy and they are……… the OISE Oxford teachers. Of course all of our teachers are concerned about the people of New York too but they are always focused on our students here at OISE and the story of Hurricane Sandy has provided them with wonderful teaching opportunities this week. The teachers are always eager to use authentic materials in their lessons, as they believe this benefits our students far more than course books and so they have been using radio clips, newspaper reports and videos to teach are students grammar and vocabulary all connected with the shocking story of the super storm.
Some teachers are using the story as an opportunity to look at the use of alliteration and puns in newspaper headlines, for example ‘Super Storm Sandy’ and “Frankenstorm". Other teachers are using the story to teach vocabulary which is useful to understanding all disaster news stories. Words like ‘aftermath’, ‘casualties’ ‘fatalities’ and ‘death toll’ are being used with ease by the students now when discussing the developments in the super storm story each day.
So as they say, every cloud has a silver lining and while hurricane Sandy continues to wreak havoc in the US our teachers here at OISE are looking on the bright side and using the story as a wonderful teaching tool.
