Sixteen-year-old Melbourne schoolgirl Jade Hameister loves a challenge, and she isn’t going to let sexist Internet trolls affect her ambitions. She recently set a polar record: she is the youngest person to achieve the “polar hat-trick” of skiing to both poles and across Greenland. When she reached the South Pole, she sent a feminist message … Continue reading “Sandwiches, Skis and Self-Esteem”
This A1+ document is about teenage Australian adventurer Jade Hameister, whose dream came true in January 2018 when she completed the third challenge in the polar hat-trick, becoming the youngest person to ski to both Poles and Greenland. Interestingly, although we can expect her to be considered a superhero by A1+ students, she insists on … Continue reading “Polar Adventurer”
Sixteen-year old Jade Hameister from Melbourne, Australia, has undertaken a series of physical challenges from climbing to the base camp on Mount Everest to skiing to the North and South Poles. She is also an inspiring speaker and wants to encourage other young people, and particularly girls, to have the courage to test themselves, even … Continue reading “Polar Adventurer Video Resources”
On 26 January every year, ceremonies are held all over Australia to welcome new citizens as part of Australia Day celebrations. But the 2018 national day was overshadowed by debates about citizenship, and about finding a date for Australia Day that is less offensive to Aboriginal people. Citizenship was a major issue in the Australian … Continue reading “Australian Identity Crisis”
A few years ago I was contemplating the idea of taking students across the globe for an Aussie experience, but it seemed out of reach: too far, too expensive, inconceivable… Until one day, in 2011, as I was looking for a new exchange for my school with an Anglophone country, I decided I would dare … Continue reading “An Incredible Australian Exchange”
If you live in the centre of a desert in Australia and you want to create an annual festival to collect money for charity, what do you do? Start a boat race, of course! Henley-on-Thames in England has a famous annual regatta. Henley-on-Todd’s version is a little less elegant! On the third Saturday of August … Continue reading “Only in Australia: Boating in the Desert”
In this A2 article your students will discover the special distance-learning schools which provide classes for children in the Australian Outback who live hundreds or even thousands of kilometres from the nearest school. We suggest going further with two downloadable short videos. For full listening-comprehension they require a B1 level, but there is plenty that … Continue reading “School of the Air in Australia”
Reconciliation Australia is an NGO set up to facilitate reconciliation between the wider Australian population and Indigenous Australians. They have a very attractive learning section on their Share Our Pride website which includes the following videos. It’s perfect for a theme about Indigenous Australians and/or Sorry Day. This is a relatively simple, short explanation (less … Continue reading “Sorry Day Teaching Resources”
For more than 150 years, tens of thousands of Australian Aboriginal children were forcibly removed from their families and communities. On 26 May, Australia recognises and commemorates this injustice on Sorry Day. Policies of “assimilating” indigenous children started early in the British colonial period in the nineteenth century. It accelerated and became more systematic from … Continue reading “Saying Sorry”
The 2016 Oscars received as much publicity for the people and subjects it didn’t honour as the red-carpet dresses or the tearful speeches. The #OscarsSoWhite campaign complained that the nominations to all four top categories only featured white faces and white stories. The 2017 nominations are a radical change. Even if the nostalgic musical La … Continue reading “Oscars 2017: NotSoWhite”
