English/ELA Unit: Endangered Languages
Lesson Plans
Grades9, 10, 11, 12, APGeography, English Language Arts
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Provided by MIT Climate Action Through Education
What it is
- In this lesson, students will explore how climate change, among other factors, threatens thousands of endangered languages with extinction and will learn about the gravity of the issue.
- Students will explore case studies of language revival efforts in Hawai'i and Northern Australia and also of the Hebrew language, understand the connection between language and climate change, and complete a video skit interviewing people about endangered languages.
Teaching tips
Positives
- This lesson demonstrates the multi-faceted issue of dying languages and highlights its importance.
- The multi-media components of the lesson help students stay engaged and hear many perspectives on the topic.
Prerequisites
- Students should understand climate change and some of its impacts.
- Before teaching the lesson, teachers should read through the social and emotional learning considerations.
- The Washington Post article may be behind a paywall. Additionally, the Wikitoungues link for Daniel Bögre Udel may not work.
Differentiation & Implementation
- Though not in the actual lesson, students may want to listen to the TILclimate Podcast episodes linked in the resource to solidify their understanding of related climate change impacts.
- Teachers can encourage students to explore their ancestral languages and determine the status of those languages.
- Teachers can use strategic grouping in the final project, ensuring that each group has a student with technical video skills, a student with writing skills, and a student comfortable being on camera.
- To make history connections, students can research the assimilation schools that contributed to the endangerment of many languages in North America.
From the scientist review
This resource from MIT's Climate Action through Education provides teachers with a lesson plan about the effects of climate change on language. The lesson plan provides teachers with links to many resources, materials, printouts, and websites to engage students in the issues associated with climate change. The references and sourced material utilized for this lesson plan are from reliable organizations and present up-to-date information. This activity would be a valuable resource for educators seeking to enhance climate-related learning experiences in the classroom.
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