Student profiles and drugs in Palestine

Grade 9 had a great time preparing profiles.  We practiced vocabulary and had them discuss personality traits in pairs - at the end some pairs came and told the rest of the class about their partners.  They then wrote about their hopes and dreams as well as hobbies so Acland Burghley students will know more about their twinning partners.  The lesson flew by so fast that we didn't get a chance to take profile photographs but we will be doing them next week!

With Grade 11 we discussed the issue of drugs in Palestine and how the occupation is encouraging Palestinians to take drugs.  The students read the following article about drugs in Silwan, a Palestinian neighbourhood in Jerusalem under threat of demolition to build the City of David Park:
http://weareallhanashalabi.wordpress.com/2012/12/07/all-they-want-our-children-to-do-is-take-drugs-and-throw-stones-drugs-israel-and-silwan/
We discussed the main points of the article; the reasons for people to take and sell drugs and their opinions on it; whether the problem can be found all across the West Bank and 48 or is Silwan a rare case; what they think the future will bring.  Interestingly, despite understanding people's reasons for selling drugs, many felt that dealers were being selfish as they put themselves before the Palestinian community and the struggle against the occupation.  They predicted that the problem will get worse in the future, with more drug-related deaths and suggest educating people about the detrimental effect of the drugs is one way to combat it.  The session gave us, and the students, lots of food for thought.

Next week is our last week here.  We can't believe how quickly the time has gone!  We will be posting all the work done here after then; it'll be something for the Acland Burghley students to look forward to in the new year!

On the third of December I went to Acland Burghley School to do an Arabic lesson with the students.
Four students came ,three of them had some knowledge of Arabic and one was a beginner.
I divided them into two groups: with the first I did conversation and making sentences. With the beginner I did very simple conversation in how to introduce yourself to other people ,also the numbers system. I tried to divide my time between the two groups. It worked very well and me the student had lots of fun.

Following on from the 11th grade's discussions of teenage social problems in the last couple of weeks, this week the 11th grade have completed group presentations. These presentations focused on the polices and campaigns that the students would introduce, if they were in government, in order to reduce the number of young people that smoke in Palestine.

The class was split into four groups and here are their views on the policies and campaigns that they would introduce to reduce the number of young Palestinian smokers:

Group 1's Views

Group 2's Views

Group 3's Views

 Group 4's Views