Goal: For students to accurately notice tonal changes and how they alter meaning in speech.

Time: 5 minutes

Steps & Teacher Directions:

• Introduction

  • • "We're going to start with a quick warm-up to get us thinking about how emotions change the way we speak. I'll say the same sentence in different emotional tones, and I want you to guess what emotion I'm expressing based on how my voice sounds."

• Model sentence: "I can't believe this happened."

  • • Sad tone: Slow, falling intonation, quiet.

    • Excited tone: Fast, high-pitched, rising intonation.

    • Angry tone: Loud, sharp, strong stress on "can't" and "happened."

• After each reading, ask students to guess the emotion. ("What emotion do you think I’m expressing here?")

  • • "What did you notice about how my tone of voice changed the feeling of the sentence? How does intonation help us communicate emotion?"

    • "Now, I’d like one of you to try saying the sentence, 'I can't believe this happened,' with an emotion of your choice. Try to show me the emotion with your voice!"

    • Provide feedback.

• Wrap up warm up: "Great! Today, we’re going to talk about how certain words related to trauma, hope, and displacement carry a lot of emotional weight. How we say these words is just as important as what we say."

Goal: For students to understand how stress and intonation influence their emotional expression when discussing trauma in English.

Time: 30 minutes

Steps & Teacher Directions:

Introduction (2 minutes)

• Open up these slides before the lesson.

• Introduce the activity by explaining that the focus today will be on how words related to trauma and displacement carry a lot of emotional weight and can change in meaning depending on how they're said. 

  • • Indicate that this will expand upon their warm-up activity.

• Show a simple phrase like: “Hope is all we have left.”

  • • First, say it with no emotion, flat and neutral.

    • Then, say it with different emotions: hopeful, sad, angry, etc.

• Ask students to note how the intonation, pitch, and stress changes with each emotion.

Discussion (3 minutes):

• Ask students to reflect on how their intonation might change when discussing difficult topics like trauma, loss, or displacement with their partner (as the slides indicate).

Teacher Modeling (5 minutes):

Use 3-4 of these sentences related to trauma and refugees:

• It’s hard to keep hope alive after such loss.

• Empathy helps us understand the suffering of others.

• The trauma of displacement is something we can never forget.

• The loss of family members is devastating for refugees.

Demonstrate: 

Read aloud each sentence in a neutral tone, then say them while using emotional tones such as:

• Hope: optimistic, encouraging intonation (high pitch, upward intonation).

• Loss: sad, solemn tone (falling intonation, slow pace).

• Empathy: compassionate, understanding tone (gentle rise and fall).

• Trauma: heavy, serious tone (deep pitch, slower speed).

Group Practice (7 minutes):

Divide the students into pairs and provide them with the list of 3-4 emotional sentences as discussed previously. Hand out this worksheet that provides the examples of different tones and intonations, along with example sentences to practice using them on.

• Have students take turns reading each sentence out loud to their partner, focusing on matching the correct intonation to the emotion behind the words. For example, “Hope” should sound uplifting, while “Loss” should sound somber.

• After each turn, the listener should give feedback to the speaker on how well they conveyed the emotion and where they can improve.

• Remind students to use hand gestures or facial expressions as cues for their tone.

• While students are discussing, walk around and monitor discussions. You can offer feedback on intonation and stress, and make sure students are focusing on the emotional expressions and correct pronunciation of words.

Part 2: Roleplay With Emphasis on Tone And Emotion (13 minutes):

Explain to students that they are now going to roleplay with each other. Explain to them that they will be paired up again and each pair will be provided with a scenario based on themes of trauma, displacement and hope. Give them these instructions:

• One student plays the role of a refugee, a victim, or a counselor, while the other plays the role of the listener (friend, family member, counselor, etc.).

• They must read their parts, focusing on emotional expression.

Use the following scenarios and assign one to each pair of students by going around the room and having each pair count 1-4, whichever number they land on is the scenario that they are expected to work with. All of the scenarios will be displayed on the slides. If students begin to finish early, then you can let them practice with a different scenario of their choice.

• Scenario 1: A refugee speaks to a counselor about their experience.

• Scenario 2: A family discusses the loss of their home due to war.

• Scenario 3: Two friends talk about how to offer empathy to a victim of displacement.

• Scenario 4: A community leader tries to inspire hope among people affected by trauma.

If students need additional clarification on how they are supposed to go about this task, provide them with these examples:

• I’ve lost everything. My home, my family, my sense of security. (Loss: sad, solemn tone, falling intonation, slow pace).

• But there’s always hope. We can rebuild our lives together. (Hope: optimistic, encouraging intonation, high pitch, upward intonation).

• Empathy is the first step in helping someone who’s suffered from trauma. (Empathy: compassionate, understanding tone, gentle rise and fall).

While students are roleplaying, walk around and monitor them. Ensure that they are not just reading the words, but are incorporating emotion through their stress, pitch and tone.

Goal: For students to understand psychological effects of trauma on refugees fleeing war and a resulting approach to combat it.

Time: 10 minutes

Steps & Teacher Directions:

Preparation:

• Ensure the computer is connected to a projector/TV. 

• Open slides, Kahoot link, and YouTube video.

• Check that students have devices ready to use.

Introduction:

• Open up the google slides and introduce the second activity: “Today we are going to show a video about a doctor who works with refugees who have experienced trauma. I want everyone to pay close attention when we are watching the video, because afterwards we are going to play a kahoot.”

• Review the learning objectives that are listed on the slides.

• Before playing the youtube video give a trigger warning: This video may have video that may be disturbing. So if anyone would like you to put your head down or turn away from the screen while listening to the video.

• Play the YouTube video (4 mins).

• After watching the video give students a second to sit with their thoughts as this is a very serious and heavy topic. Ask students if they would like to share how they felt while watching the video or ask what their takeaways were from the video.

Goal: For students to complete an informal comprehension assessment in the form of a Kahoot! based on the video featuring Dr. Daod's approach to stopping trauma.

Time: 10 minutes

Steps & Teacher Directions:

• Inform the students it’s time to participate in a Kahoot quiz and help them set up if needed. Instruct them to go to “Kahoot.it.”

• Make sure the code is displayed on the screen.

• Make sure that all students know how to participate in a Kahoot.

  • • Assist them with setting up their devices if needed.

• Students will have 20 seconds for each quiz question, and thus will have enough time to ponder and reflect on each question. 

• Manually advance to the answer screen should they answer quicker than the allotted time. While the game aspect may speed up some learners or cause some light pressure, encourage thoughtfulness and accuracy over speed.

• Should a significant number of students get a quiz question wrong, pause the game and review the answer options with them, explaining each and why they are or aren't correct.

Goal: For students to craft arguments in support of their position, to engage in respectful debate with their peers, and to notice the overlapping nature of their different roles during debate.

Time: ~30 minutes (more is recommended)

Steps & Teacher Directions:

Introduction and Preparation (10-15 minutes):

• Stemming from the previous listening/viewing activity and prior lessons as a whole, students are now well-informed on refugees, the conditions in which they come from and have endured, and the emotional toll of their experiences. 

• Inform students that they will prepare for and engage in an in-class debate revolving around the following question:

“What is the most effective way to support refugees after they have been displaced?”

• Divide students into group with three different roles:

  • Mental Health Support: this group will be tasked with arguing that the most effective way to support displaced refugees is by dedicating resources to treating mental health (therapy, counseling, approaches like the ones they saw in Dr. Daod’s video).

  • Financial Support: this group will be tasked with arguing that the most effective way to support displaced refugees is by dedicating resources toward cash allotments to refugees and their families in order to cover their basic needs (food, shelter/rent, utilities, clothing, etc.) as they integrate into a new land – many of whom cannot easily get work soon after arriving. 

  • Educational Support: this group will be tasked with arguing that the most effective way to support displaced refugees is by dedicating resources toward equipping refugees with education access. This includes assisting families with enrolling their children into schooling, providing enrollment options into foreign language acquisition courses for adults if their new country has an unfamiliar language or if they do not have a formal education (includes life essentials workshops such as money management, accessing public transportation and making sense of the new environment, etc.)

• There are multiple options for dividing students into these groups:

  • You can ask students to join a group and do some balancing to make sure each group has roughly the same number of students

  • You can divide students by numbering them off or using a class roster randomizer to sort them into groups

  • Groups should be no more than 7 or 8 students; if there are too many students, create a 4th group that will act as a notetaking/impartial group.

• During this preparation portion, task the student groups of 7-8 students to set aside half of their members as speakers, with the other half acting as researchers. Encourage students to use their prep time by researching their group’s focus with Google searches (ex. queries: “why does education need more funding for refugees,” “what resources do refugees need most when living in a new country,” etc.) and by calling back on information from previous lessons/activities.

• Encourage speakers to create an opening statement for their group after researchers provide them information with the following stem:

“The most effective way to support refugees after displacement is by using more resources on ________ (group topic) because (list belief why that category is most effective).”

• After groups reconvene, organize class by having groups sit with each other in a roundtable circle. Ideally, if room permits it, have speakers sit in the front circle with researchers behind them, and have notetakers (if applicable) in the seats nearest to you.

Debate Portion (15 minutes):

• After each group has given their opening statement, act as the moderator of the debate by posing a question to one group to begin discussion.

  • Example question:

“Mental health group, did you find anything through your research or from the class experiences we’ve had that made you think supporting mental health is the best way to support refugees?”

• After one group answers, invite the other groups’ speakers to respond.

  • All responses are acceptable as long as they are respectful. This could include commentary/adding on from a speaker from another group, disagreement, or a partial agreement followed by presentation of their own evidence/argument

  • Each person assigned to speak in their group (3-4 people) should speak at least once

• Further question options to push discussion

  • “Whose job is it to help refugees with getting these resources? Do we all have a role to play?”

  • “Which category (mental, financial, or educational) do you think can be most easily supported? Do you think citizens like us can help refugees with any of these categories?”

• Encourage, in particular, responses that begin to unravel the intersectionality of the categories. See if you can stimulate points that students make in disagreement into agreements about the importance of each category.

Wrap-Up (~2-5 minutes, if time permits)

• Ask the students which category they thought this lesson and the previous ones focused on the most. They should, in all likelihood, recognize that most of the curriculum’s attention was paid to mental health and mental health resources.

  • Follow up by asking: “should we have focused more on other categories, like financial and educational, more?”

• Ask the students if they think the categories have equal importance.

  • Confirm that they do, and that many of the categories of refugee aid overlap with each other, so they all deserve significant aid and attention/resources.

Grading Rubric for Assessment

• This activity acts a formal assessment for the unit and is recommended to be extended for more discussion time (in order for all students to effectively participate). If time is limited to ~30 minutes, as formatted in this lesson outline, break debate groups into smaller groups.

• The analytical scoring rubric can be found here and in the Appendix. 

Goal: To allot more time for students to reflect on the debate and lessons as a whole.

Time: ~5 minutes

Steps & Teacher Directions:

• Thank the class for their participation and remind them of the importance of understanding trauma in educational settings. For example:

 “Understanding trauma in educational settings is crucial because it means as future educators we can adapt our teaching methods, and environment to best fit the needs of the students so that they can learn to the best of their ability.”

• Encourage them to continue thinking about how to create supportive environments for all students, especially those facing challenges.

Appendix G: Kahoot Questions (Correct Answers in Green)

Kahoot Questions:

1. What was the primary focus of Dr. Daod's work?

• General medicine

• Child Psychiatry 

• Adult therapy 

• Physical Therapy 

2. True or False: Humanitarian aid often includes mental health with the basic needs of body, shelter, and food.

• True

• False (mental health needs are often not met with other humanitarian basics)

3. What is the main cause of trauma for children that Dr. Daod works with?

• Physical injuries

• Natural Disasters

• War and Displacement

• Domestic Issues

4. How does Dr. Daod view the importance of cultural understanding in his work?

• It is not important

•  It is critical for effective treatment 

• It complicates the process 

• It is secondary to medical training

5. What kind of support does Dr. Daod provide to families?

• Financial assistance

• Legal advice

• Housing support

• Psychological support

6. What outcomes does Dr. Daod hope to reach through his work? (Multiple answers may be correct; select one)

• Quick recovery 

• Long-term emotional-well being

• Integration into society

• Trauma release (all are correct)

7. Does Dr. Daod want his work to help refugees integrate into their host society, or to help them rebuild their homeland?

• Integrate into a host society

• Help them rebuild their homeland

• Dr. Daod wants his work to do both

• This question is confusing

8. True or False: Dr. Daod believes treating refugees as heroes is more effective than focusing on them as victims.

• True

• False

9. True or False: Dr. Daod’s work is only aimed at helping child refugees.

• True

• False