By Maria-Nefeli Andredaki,
Language teachers, in my opinion, should not shy away from bringing up and discussing sensitive topics in the classroom. Grammar and vocabulary activities are great, and literature is even greater, but I believe that nothing is more useful in language-learning than exposing students to current social issues and inviting them in a conversation where they can think, listen, form opinions and express themselves in the target language.
The inspiration for this article came from my recent experience of dedicating a whole lesson to the murder of Alexis Grigoropoulos, which happened on December 6th 2008. Let me preface this by saying that the level of this specific class is B2, which allowed me to actually bring up a topic like this and have a meaningful conversation with my students about it. If your students’ level is lower than B1 or if they are quite young, you should probably avoid discussing violent topics, as it might be quite upsetting for them. Whatever their age, I would still recommend that you clearly state the topic of conversation beforehand, just so that they can prepare themselves and know that they have the choice to opt out of the conversation, if it makes them uncomfortable.
I began by asking my students about the name “Alexis Grigoropoulos”, which they had heard mostly from the news. I, then, showed them his picture, not only to learn if they had seen him before, but most importantly, to humanize the victim, to make them realize that what we are discussing is not a fairy tale, but a true story that is still relevant. Being a young teacher has a couple of advantages, one of which being the very recent experience of being a student yourself. Whenever my teachers tried to touch on social issues, they would never make them personal enough for me to care. Why would a teenager be interested in the murder of someone, that happened before they were even born? The way we teach and communicate with our students is what will draw them in, not the conversation topic in itself.
I asked my students about their favorite spots to hang out. What their friend group looks like. What they do when they’re out. “Are you loud?”. “Do you engage with strangers outside of your group?”. I invited them to take an imaginary stroll through Exarcheia in 2008, the day when two police officers decided to disobey their superiors, park their police car down the road, get out of it armed and start a fight with a group of teenagers. I could see them getting concerned and wondering why an adult would do such a thing, since they have learned from a young age that “adults know better”.
This is the part where I gave them the full facts of the story: dates, names, faces, actions. The first question was if Korkoneas is still in prison. My answer brought disappointment and disgust. To make the conversation a bit clearer, I got them to write and present their idea of a police officer’s role in society. We, then, gathered their notes and compared them to what happened on December 6th. The fact that they were all so involved and eager to learn about what we were discussing was very emotional for me.
This is a great opportunity to introduce new vocabulary. “What do you think ‘victim-blaming’ means?”, “How about ‘racial bias’?”, “Why does it matter if someone is ‘armed’ or ‘unarmed’”. In that way, you do not only teach content, but you foster an environment of language production as well!
The classroom needs to be a safe and accepting space. However, this does not mean that it should be detached from what is happening outside of it. When we teach language as a tool to navigate and explore real-life issues, we provide our students with something invaluable, which is what teaching is all about.
In dear memory of Alexis, whose name should be uttered in every classroom.
Reference
- The murder of Alexandros Grigoropoulos. The press project. Available here
