Letter from the future

Dear Harl,

When you read this, I would not be in the earth but I am happy if you could find this letter.

Now the world has been changed… not as I thought but nobody could image current world. As I said, the project X could be successful by us, the group of Drewitt’s. All Children and animals could have the telepath. I was very glad that all humans and living could know each other. But the tragedy had been started from that moment. Most of children could not live until 20 years old. Perhaps one in a hundred grew to be twenty. Do you think why they could not live for a long time? They killed by the telepath itself. Some of them shot themselves or jumped off buildings and many children have been dead.

I thought the world might be brilliant because of the telepath, but now the world seems to be going to dead, suicide by them. I understand I was wrong, but we could not stop the telepath… I am really sorry and miss you so much now, but I know it is too late.

I hope we could meet again future generation after we died.

Ellen

World flag - design and describe

A recent little project some of my adult students have been doing, which at the time coincided with the FIFA World Cup, is a lesson plan from www.onestopenglish.com: Beyond: Knowledge: Geography. The website offers a variety of resources and fully prepared lesson plans with materials for free, with even more to be unlocked from joining their "Staff Room". The lesson plan focuses on identifying and describing flags, alongside giving students an opportunity to design and create their own world flag. For this task I asked my students to be as original and inspiring as possible with their designs. So I would like to present to you a collection of "world flags", accompanied by a brief description.

Misako's design

I imagine everlasting world.

Pale blue part means sky.

Blue part means sea.

Read part means the sun.

Four leaves clover is a symbol of peace, hope, human love, fortune.

Misuzu's design

The green part is an earth.

The pink part is flowers covering the earth.

The blue part is sky.

Please imagine if you go to space, you can see the earth like this shape from spaceship window.

Yuuko's design

This flag has on green background.

It's football field.

In the middle, there is peace mark.

This year is FIFA world cup year.

FIFA world cup entertained all over the world people.

Sports games makes a world happy and peace.

Reiko's design

This flag has black background.

There are a big blue circle in the middle and olive leaf on the big circle.

And this have one big circle and one medium circle seven small circles slantingly and straight.

One medium circle is on bottom left.

The big circle is between one medium circle and seven small circles.

In left side one medium circle and 2 small circles.

In right side five small circles.

The medium circle's color is orange.

The small circle's color is yello.

The olive leaf's colour is yellow green.

The olive berry's color is olive.

Background black mean the Space.

The big blue circle mean the Earth.

The olive leaf is a symbol of Peace.

One medium circle in bottom left mean Sun.

Seven small circles mean the solar system planet.

From bottom left Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune.

The flag mean the peace of all of the world and all of the space.

Rie's design

In the middle, there is a symbol. A symbol that looks like a snake. This flag has gradation background. The meaning of the gradation is the variety of people on earth. There are various races, but it is connected like slow gradation. The ring formed snake represent the state that without opening and ending.

Shouko's design

The Earth is full of dreams.
I was represented by a star that dream.
Big dream, a small dream.
There is a dream of various shapes.
All its wonderful.
That dream come true and Holding Hands is people from all over the world.
The message "Holding Hands".
Blue is the color of the earth.
Also easy to match the skin of any color is purple.

What can you see from your bedroom window?

            When I asked my younger students “what can you see from your bedroom window?” I got a rather dull and boring answer of “a wall”. One of my students even said that he doesn't have a bedroom. I had to make sure he wasn't Harry Potter! These were not exactly the responses of inspiration and wonder I was hoping for. I couldn't even use the Japanese Alps in view from out of my classroom window as creative inspiration since it was dark. As I wanted my students to transfer their bedroom views onto paper, I realized this was going to be rather an unfruitful activity if we spent the next part of the lesson drawing our neighbour’s walls.

So I took a slightly different approach. Instead of asking “what can you see from your bedroom window?” I asked “what would you like to see from your bedroom window?”. This gave the class the spark I was looking for, giving them the incentive to use their creativity and imagination. The students began to draw the most bizarre and wonderful things you could imagine: from dinosaurs to an octopus climbing Mount Fuji, even the vast expanses of space!

Once our visions of wonder were completed, we learnt how to spell and write all of the marvellous things we had just drawn. This allowed the students to recycle the words they have learnt previously as well as learn how to say some of their favourite things in English! The students took great pride in hanging up their make believe bedroom view around my classroom, boasting to their fellow classmates of all the new exciting words they have learnt.

A fantastic way of engaging the students while giving you the opportunity to learn a little more about them. So the question is; what can YOU see from your bedroom window?

Damian Gowland