Wherever you are, I’m sure that you’ve heard about the terrorist attacks which hit Paris last week, and before that, the siege in Sydney where an Islamic radical held up a café.
A question for English teachers and learners is whether or not this should be a talking point in class. Have your class talked about it..? How did it go?
Is there any point in talking about it, given that everyone will probably have a different point of view and end up arguing?
I was travelling last week so I didn’t have to answer that question. However, what I would do is simply ask my students if they would like to talk about the attacks or not.
I may have this decision to make in tomorrow’s classes.
I can see why some learners wouldn’t want to talk about it. For many their English class is their time to escape from problems at school or work, and so it might be the last thing they want to talk about.
But if it’s the one thing being discussed in the media, then perhaps we can’t ignore it.
The Cartoons
While millions are saying “je suis Charlie” it looks like deeper issues will not be looked at in the media. For example, in a truly democratic society, journalists needed to re-publish the cartoons in order to tell the full story. That’s what journalism is all about, and here’s one of the few videos I could find in English that discuss this:
What Questions Could Be Asked In Class?
Based in the Czech Republic, a strongly atheist state, I feel we could discuss any topic. However, it would depend on the students if we’d get disinterest and silence or a lot of conversation. I’d be especially interested to hear what my former students in Prague think:
- What role does the West play in attracting terrorism? For example, is it really effective for the USA to lead wars in the Middle East..? Are we really told the truth in what’s happening over there?
- What are the goals of terrorists?
- Is it ‘Islamic terrorism’ or simply ‘terrorism’?
- Why is it ok for Christians to be mocked in the media and on Facebook but usually not Muslims or Jews?
- Why does the Western media pay so much attention to when an attack occurs in the west, but not in a Muslim country?
- Don’t we need to care more about what’s happening in other countries and not just our own?
- Does free speech exist anymore?
- How do different political parties seek to limit free speech?
- Does multiculturalism work?
- What are ‘Western values’? How do Western values differ from Islam? Aren’t people deep-down the same?
- How well do immigrants and people from minority religions integrate into the wider community in your country? What can we do to improve this process?
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