Activity:  Identify author's emotions

Purpose:  Listening for gist / Making inferences about emotions

Time:  10 minutes

Learning Objectives Targeted:  3, 4

Steps & Teacher Directions:  

Explain to students that they are going to listen to a poem by a 15-year-old child named Omar who fled from Syria and now lives as a refugee in Jordan with his family.

Prior to class, print out enough worksheets from Appendix B for each student.  Note that one side has 3 blank lines for students to write down emotion words and the other side has a gap-fill exercise.

Hand out the double-sided worksheets to each student. Set paper with the three blanks for emotions side up on student desks.  Instruct students NOT to flip over papers. 

Tell students they will now listen to the poem that you spoke about in the introduction.  Ask them to think about the emotions the author is feeling as they listen to and watch the video.  What English words name or describe the emotions they think the author is feeling?  After they have completed listening to the poem, ask them to write down three of the emotions they inferred the author was feeling.

To help with understanding the poem, go to slide 3 and quickly go over vocabulary words.  Ideally, have  students take turns reading words and meanings.  

Play the video.  Ensure that English subtitles are turned ON.  You may play the video at a slower playback speed on YouTube.

In order for students to share their thoughts with the class as well as give an opportunity for students to get up and move, have the students come to the board to write out the emotion words they inferred.  Let the students know it is okay if the words are the same as other students.  After this exercise students can visually see which words were frequently inferred and which ones are unique.

Ask for two to three students to explain why they picked their words (nominate a few students one at a time if no one volunteers).

Activity:  Gap fill missing words while listening to a poem

Purpose:  Gap fill / Recognize words spoken in a poem

Time:  10 minutes

Learning Objectives Targeted:  5

Steps & Teacher Directions: 

Tell the students they will watch and listen to the same video of the poem "Our Hearts are Broken" once again.

Explain how a gap-fill exercise  works.  As they listen to the poem they will follow the written words on their sheet and fill in missing words in the gaps. Let students know that some words are repeated multiple times, and that they can use shorthand or a symbol to indicate that.

Instruct students to flip over their worksheet to the gap fill side.

Ensure that English subtitles are turned OFF.  Play the video again, pausing as needed for students to write in words.  You may play the video at a slower playback speed on YouTube.

Monitor student work to decide if the video needs to be played another time.  Play the video another time if the students need or ask for another try.

Go over answers as a whole class, have students shout out / volunteer the answers

Have each student read one line of the poem.  

• Note:  Adjust the portion of the poem to be read based on the number of students present in the classroom.

Activity:  Gather information on building a refugee camp

Purpose:   Listening for detail / Group discussion

Time:  30 minutes

Learning Objectives Targeted:  2

Steps & Teacher Directions: 

Go to slide 4.  

• Read the definition of a  refugee camp.  

Ask:

• How long do you think refugees typically live in refugee camps?  Elicit answers.  

Explain that time spent in a camp can be short-term or last for many generations (years, decades).  Long-term refugee camps may become like miniature cities.

Talk about why refugee camps are needed, initiate a group discussion that includes the following points (elicit as much information as possible from the students,  fill in gaps as needed).

• In a crisis, people have to flee immediately without any long-term provisions.

• They don’t have  relatives or friends in another country who can house them.

• They arrive at another country or country border and need help to survive.

• People who have lost everything or are already poor don’t have the means to fly to safe areas or countries.

Create groups of 3 or 4 students seated together.  Pass out set of cards with cut-out words from the google doc,  "Components & Services of a Successful Refugee Camp" each group.  Give students a few minutes to look at the words.

Explain that you will play a video about how a refugee camp is designed and built.  As they watch the video, a student from the group will hold up the card which is spoken about in the video (e.g. if air conditioning is mentioned in the video, each of the groups will hold up the card with the words "Air Conditioning.")   If a component or service mentioned in the video is missed by the students, pause the video and ask them what they heard and if they can find it in their set of cards.

Play the video on how a refugee camp is built.  As the video is playing, have the students in each group take turns  holding up the card with the word that is referenced in the video when they hear it.  Pause video as needed.

When the video is complete, tell each group they are responsible for building a refugee camp.  Give the students some background information:

• There is limited money to build the camp and provide services.

• Refugees are expected to live in the camp for 3-5 years

Their assignment is choose the items and services  their  refugee camp can provide:

• Group members needs to discuss, select and prioritize the items and services that a refugee camp can provide

• The refugee camp  to be built can only provide a total of 10 items or services  on the list due to limited money.

• Which 10 items and services will each group pick and how would they prioritize them?  

• They can also write down any additional items not talked about in the video  on a blank card, but the total can only be 10  items.

• The groups also need to pick 3 items or services they think should not be provided at all.

Unobtrusively monitor group  discussions.  Each group will have 10 minutes to discuss and pick their final choices.

Have one person from the group list their choices and explain their reasoning.

Activity:  Facts about Six Major Current Refugee Crises

Purpose:  Make connections to real-world refugee crises

Time:  20 minutes

Learning Objectives Targeted:  6

Steps & Teacher Directions: 

Form groups of six.   Give a single-sided printed copy of the 2022 Refugee Facts Sheets google document to each group.  

Each student in the group gets one sheet (one of each of the 6 countries).     Each student looks over their sheet for 60 seconds.  Everybody passes their sheet to the left, and spends a short amount of time looking over it (~30 seconds or so), before passing along again. During this time, students can point out something that stood out to them, or pose questions to the group and discuss ideas. 

As you demonstrate this activity, these are model questions that can be asked:

• Which country has the most number of refugees?

• Which countries are struggling due to war?

• Which countries are struggling due to economic reasons?

• Which countries have refugees who live in refugee camps?

• Which country has had the longest running crisis?

• Which countries have refugees who have gone into other countries without living in refugee camps?