LESSON PLAN TO WORK WITH THE EXHIBITION: “CHILD SLAVERY: PAST AND PRESENT” A large percentage of slaves today are children, some of them are even younger than students who sit in our classrooms, some as young as four. Working under harsh conditions with little or no pay, few family ties, and inadequate shelter and food, child slaves are the victims of an economic system that prevails over the welfare of children, ethics and human dignity. Child slavery will never end until it becomes an issue of global concern. Education about slavery and its causes must be present in our classroom. There is a close relationship between child slavery and adults’ unemployment and exploitation. One reason why they occur is that the Structural Adjustment programs of the IMF and World Bank force developing nations to continuously cut back in order to export more at a cheaper rate and race to the bottom. Labour, as one example of this, gets cheaper and cheaper; which benefits multinational companies but not the workers themselves. The activities below are mainly meant to be used as a tool to teach ourselves and our students solidarity with the impoverished, the exploited, the oppressed and the suffering.
WARM-UP INDIVIDUAL WORK: 1. Have a look at the clothes you are wearing and choose 2 garments, see where they were made. 2. Now choose one of them. Think of the country it was made in. What do you know about this country? And, about the factory where your garment was made? Imagine what this factory can be like. Describe what you have imagined.
THE EXHIBITION This exhibition portrays child slavery in the past and at present. It intends to be a parallelism that shows that after more than 200 years little has changed. This exhibition can be used as authentic material to teach English language –as we will see– but its main objective is to denounce that slavery still exists at present and that there are over 400 million child slaves in the world. Another objective is to raise awareness of the causes of child slavery and our degree of responsibility for this evil.
The exhibition has an introduction to Child Slavery in the Past and at Present, and mentions some of the different types of child slavery. Then, it focuses on each different form of child slavery with the same pattern:
-
PICTURE: BRICK MAKING Brick Making in the PAST Brick Making at PRESENT General characteristics of BONDED LABOUR AT PRESENT
-
PICTURE: CHILD SOLDIERS Child Soldiers in the PAST Child Soldiers at PRESENT General characteristics of this type of slavery AT PRESENT
-
PICTURE: CHILDREN IN THE TEXTILE INDUSTRY Children in the textile industry in the PAST Child in the textile industry at PRESENT General characteristics of this type of slavery AT PRESENT
-
PICTURE: CHILD SEX SLAVES Child Sex Slaves in the PAST Child Sex Slaves at PRESENT General characteristics of this type of slavery AT PRESENT
-
PICTURE: CHILD MINERS Child Miners in the PAST Child Miners at PRESENT General characteristics of this type of slavery AT PRESENT
-
PICTURE: CHILD SCAVENGERS Child Scavengers in the PAST Child Scavengers at PRESENT General characteristics of this type of slavery AT PRESENT
-
PICTURE: CHILD SLAVES IN THE CARPET INDUSTRY Child Slaves in factories in the PAST Child Slaves in factories at PRESENT General characteristics of this type of slavery AT PRESENT
The exhibition finishes with a message of hope: -
CHILD SLAVES who got away from slavery and who fought against child slavery. William Thorne (1857-1946) Iqbal Masih (1982-1995) Causes of Child Slavery 16th April: International Day Against child Slavery
Each slide is accompanied by the translation into Spanish
AFTER SEEING THE EXHIBITION: POSSIBLE ACTIVITIES TO REFLECT ON CHILD SLAVERY after seeing the exhibition – Follow the links: Use INTERIOR MONOLOGUES to get students to empathise with child slaves MULTINATIONALS PROFIT, WE CONSUME, THEY DIE. Analyse the causes of child slavery, multinationals’ blame for this crime and our role as agents who contribute to this situation with our consumerism and indifference FUELING VIOLENCE AND DEATH IN DRC. Learn about where coltan for our wireless devices comes from and its connection with child slavery, analyse the responsibility of multinational communication companies for this crime Watch a video: ANIL’S STORY, a child slave in India, analyse the causes of child slavery and talk about what actions can be taken not to be accomplices and to help to put an end to child slavery. See WHY IS THE 16th APRIL THE INTERNATIONAL DAY AGAINST CHILD SLAVERY? It’s important to finish the lesson with a message of hope. There are organizations such as CAMINO JUVENIL SOLIDARIO –SOLIDARITY YOUTH PATH– which are assuming responsibility and carrying out actions to fight against Child Slavery. Watch the video: Anti-Spot Nike-Camino Juvenil Solidario POSSIBLE LANGUAGE ACTIVITIES: When teachers decide to work with authentic material, we may often think that this can be time-consuming as we will have to prepare all the activities ourselves. However, a teaching resource that can result quite positive for students themselves is dividing them into groups and getting them to prepare the activities for the other groups: reading-comprehension questions; true-false statements; filling-in-the-gap exercises… Each type of child slavery of this exhibition can be assigned to a different group so that they can do a different range of activities.
DEVELOPING READING-COMPREHENSION SKILLS: -
Skimming and scanning True or False exercise Reading-comprehension questions
DEVELOPING ORAL SKILLS: -
-
Students can be divided into pairs or groups and each group can read about a different type of child slavery explained in the exhibition, look up more information and deliver a presentation about it to the rest of the class or to other classes. Another possibility is to get different students to present different parts of the exhibition to the rest of the class or to other people. Students can also debate about Child Slavery in class, analyze its causes and give opinion. Students can role-play radio news bulletins about child slavery.
GRAMMAR POINTS: Different slides can be used to introduce and to practice: -
Simple Present and Present Perfect Simple Past and Past Perfect Reported Speech (using all the Direct Speech sentences uttered by Child Slaves at Present) Direct Speech (turning Reported Speech into the actual words children may have used) Connectors Relative Clauses Modal verbs Passive Voice
DEVELOPING WRITING SKILLS: At the end of the lesson, students can be asked to write a composition, which can be sent to a newspaper, magazine, website... Therefore, apart from developing writing skills, students will be able to carry out an action to denounce child slavery, and in doing so, composition writing will become more purposeful. Possible topics for different types of composition (Students can search for information on the web) -
Write a newspaper article about non-violent actions carried out in order to denounce child slavery on “16th April: International Day against Child Slavery” in different parts of Spain. Write an informal letter/article to be posted on the school notice-board reflecting on our degree of responsibility for child slavery. Write the story of a child slave. Write an opinion essay: Child Slavery is a crime and should be punished with high fines and prison. Write an argumentative essay: “Politicians, Trade Unions and international organizations do not really take actions to put an end to child slavery” Write a letter to a newspaper to complain about the fact that very little information about child slavery is published. Write a report on what students know about child slavery and suggest steps to take to become better informed.
Complementary VIDEOS that can be seen: -
CHINA BLUE HOW TO BUY A CHILD IN 10 HOURS FREEDOM HERO: Iqbal Masih ANIL'S STORY: A child slave in India CONGO'S BLODDY COLTAN MODERN SLAVERY CHILD PROSTITUTION IN SPAIN SUNITHA KRISHNAN AGAINST SEX SLAVERY THE CHILDREN OF LENINGRADSKY
EXTENSIVE READING: -
-
-
IQBAL MASIH: SYMBOL OF THE FIGHT FOR JUSTICE IQBAL MASIH'S STORY (followed b activities) IQBAL MASIH'S COMIC (followed by activities) IQBAL MASIH - NIVEL 2 By Charles D. Kerrigan Publishing house: Stanley Publishing CHILD HEROES: Iqbal Masih By Robyn Opie, Deborah Baldassi Publishing house: Era Publications THE LITTLE HERO: One boy's fight for freedom : Iqbal Masih's story By Andrew Croft
RELATED ACTIVITIES: About Child Slavery in the Past: - SONGS OF INNOCENCE - William Blake - THE CHILDREN WHO BUILT GREAT BRITAIN - DIFFERENT TYPES OF CHILD SLAVERY IN VICTORIAN TIMES About Child Slavery at Present: - LIFE AS A REFUGEE CHILD (Lesson Plan – PART I) - LIFE AS A REFUGEE CHILD (PART II) - HOW TO BUY A CHILD IN 10 HOURS - FUELING VIOLENCE AND DEATH IN DRC - SLAVERY AT PRESENT - CONSUMER SLAVERY: THE STORY OF STUFF
For more information about Child Slavery in English: Visit:
http://education-for-solidarity.blogspot.com.es/p/child-slavery.html
For more information about Child Slavery in Spanish: Visit:
http://www.solidaridad.net/iqbal/ http://www.solidaridad.net/seccion/24/esclavitud-infantil http://educacionysolidaridad.blogspot.com.es/search/label/Esclavitud%20Infantil