Listening, speaking, writing and projects

Listening: the siege. Watch the short video on the siege of Leningrad. Make notes in the first box (dates, what happened, how people lived), then write a narrative in the second: the story in order, in your own words.

Speaking: Lena's words on will power. Lena wrote that a day in which you learn nothing is wasted. She believed that strength, cleverness and steadiness are open to everyone, and that the one thing needed is will power. People with strong will keep going (persistence) and do not give up (determination). Nobody is born brave or strong: these qualities are built, through effort, just as we learn to read and write. Think of someone you know with these qualities and tell your partner what they did.

Project: the Bengal famine of 1943. It struck Bengal during the Second World War, and millions died. In groups, find out the areas hit, the causes (historians point to a cyclone, crop disease, the war, and the colonial government's policies), the relief given, and pictures or films. Make a poster with a title.

Truth stranger than fiction. Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish sailor, was left alone on an island off Chile for four years and four months; Defoe based Robinson Crusoe on his story. And Corporal Wojtek, a bear adopted by Polish soldiers in World War II, carried heavy crates of shells for them, rewarded with honey and marmalade. Collect more true stories like these.