International Space Station
Goal: Students practice identifying, discussing and resolving problems and conflicts using various methods and language skills.
Key words/phrases:
Critical language (Who brings a bag of seeds into space anyway?)
Descriptive language (It’s long and green, it’s got three eyes, it looks like…)
Instructional language (Try turning it to the left, you need to open the lid like this…)
Questions (Did you look under the control panel? When was the last time you saw it?)
Description: In this activity, students pretend to be visiting or working on the International Space Station. Assign roles to students, like astronauts and wealthy space tourists, but also more outside-the-box options like a school teacher invited to give science lessons from space or a common man who has won the visit in a lottery.
Each type of person would think and speak differently! Encourage students to have fun with it. Being enclosed in a vehicle that travels at thousands of miles an hour at zero gravity can lead to some pretty odd situations. Here are a few ideas to get students talking:
Someone brought sunflower seeds to munch on and they’re floating everywhere.
A piece of disgusting space garbage is floating outside the window.
Someone sees an extraterrestrial outside the window.
Cabin pressure drops and everyone has to find ways to fix the problem.
Set some ground rules by ensuring that students go through each scenario by identifying the problem or issue, discussing the issue and resolving it. It’s a fun way to practice conflict resolution in English.
You can get fun with this by adding props. For instance, an old TV remote can act as a communication device, your ESL textbook can double as a handbook for fixing something on the station, etc.