Earthquake

Prepare a Home Earthquake Plan

• Choose a safe place in every room--under a sturdy table or desk or against an inside wall where nothing can fall on you.
• Practice DROP, COVER, AND HOLD ON at least twice a year. Drop under a sturdy desk or table, hold on, and protect your eyes by pressing your face against your arm. If there's no table or desk nearby, sit on the floor against an interior wall away from windows, bookcases, or tall furniture that could fall on you. Teach children to DROP, COVER, AND HOLD ON!
• Choose an out-of-town family contact.
• Consult a professional to find out additional ways you can protect your home, such as bolting the house to its foundation and other structural mitigation techniques.
• Take a first aid class from your local Red Cross chapter. Keep your training current.
• Get training in how to use a fire extinguisher from your local fire department.
• Inform babysitters and caregivers of your plan.

Eliminate Hazards, Including--

• Bolting bookcases, china cabinets, and other tall furniture to wall studs.
• Installing strong latches on cupboards.
• Strapping the water heater to wall studs.

Prepare a Disaster Supplies Kit For Home and Car, Including--

• First aid kit and essential medications.
• Canned food and can opener.
• At least three gallons of water per person.
• Protective clothing, rainwear, and bedding or sleeping bags.
• Battery-powered radio, flashlight, and extra batteries.
• Special items for infant, elderly, or disabled family members.
• Written instructions for how to turn off gas, electricity, and water if authorities advise you to do so. (Remember, you'll need a professional to turn natural gas service back on.)
• Keeping essentials, such as a flashlight and sturdy shoes, by your bedside.

Know What to Do When the Shaking Begins

• DROP, COVER, AND HOLD ON! Move only a few steps to a nearby safe place. Stay indoors until the shaking stops and you're sure it's safe to exit. Stay away from windows. In a high-rise building, expect the fire alarms and sprinklers to go off during a quake.
• If you are in bed, hold on and stay there, protecting your head with a pillow.
• If you are outdoors, find a clear spot away from buildings, trees, and power lines. Drop to the ground.
• If you are in a car, slow down and drive to a clear place (as described above). Stay in the car until the shaking stops.

Identify What to Do After the Shaking Stops

• Check yourself for injuries. Protect yourself from further danger by putting on long pants, a long-sleeved shirt, sturdy shoes, and work gloves.
• Check others for injuries. Give first aid for serious injuries.
• Look for and extinguish small fires. Eliminate fire hazards. Turn off the gas if you smell gas or think it's leaking. (Remember, only a professional should turn it back on.)
• Listen to the radio for instructions.
• Expect aftershocks. Each time you feel one, DROP, COVER, AND HOLD ON!
• Inspect your home for damage. Get everyone out if your home is unsafe.
• Use the telephone only to report life-threatening emergencies.

Creativity in the language classroom

Before we set out and look at some theories and practice for introducing creativity into the language classroom, let’s see why it is worth making all this effort.

       What is creativity?

       Why is creativity important?

       Am I ever creative?

       Are my students creative in my lessons?

What is creativity?

Do you think you are creative? Do you think your students are creative? All of them? Some of them? Alas, only very few of them? Do you think you can call yourself lucky if you have one or two creative students in a life time? Do you think the younger the students are the more creative they are? Or do you think the opposite is true and that you learn to be creative over the years? How do you know that someone is creative? What do you actually do when you are thinking creatively?

Do you think your colleagues would answer these questions the same way as you do? In my experience, people hold very different views of creativity. Some think they aren’t creative at all and it is only the privileged and artistically talented, who can be considered creative. Others think that to cook a good dinner is already a clear sign of creativity.

In the coming articles, I do not aim to answer the questions above. What I aim to do is to look at three different theoretical descriptions of creative thinking and explore what language teachers may learn from them. I hope that after reading the articles, you will be able to ask many more and much more challenging questions about creativity and its use in the classroom than I did in the first paragraph.

Why is creativity important?
Before we set out and look at some theories and practice for introducing creativity into the language classroom, let’s see why it is worth making all this effort. Why is creativity important in language classrooms?

       Language use is a creative act: we transform thoughts into language that can be heard or seen. We are capable of producing sentences and even long texts that we have never heard or seen before. By giving learners creative exercises, we get them to practise an important sub-skill of using a language: thinking creatively.

       Compensation strategies (methods used for making up for lack of language in a communicative situation e.g. miming, drawing, paraphrasing used for getting meaning across) use creative and often imaginative ways of expression. Our learners will need these until they master the language.

       In my experience, some people cannot learn at all if they are not allowed to be creative. They do not understand the point in doing a language activity for its own sake, for only practising the language without a real content, purpose, outcome or even a product.

       My experience also taught me that most people become more motivated, inspired or challenged if they can create something of value, if they feel that in some ways what they do and how they do it reflect who they are.

       Creativity improves self-esteem as learners can look at their own solutions to problems and their own products and see what they are able to achieve.

       Creative work in the language classroom can lead to genuine communication and co-operation. Learners use the language to do the creative task, so they use it as a tool, in its original function. This prepares learners for using the language instrumentally outside the classroom.

       Creative tasks enrich classroom work, and they make it more varied and more enjoyable by tapping into individual talents, ideas and thoughts - both the learners’ and the teacher’s.

       Creative thinking is an important skill in real life. It is part of our survival strategies and it is a force behind personal growth and the development of culture and society.

Having read this list of why creativity is important in the classroom, you may have been wondering about either or both of these two questions:

       Am I ever creative?

       Do I ever get my students to do anything creative in my lessons?

I’m almost a hundred per cent sure that the answer is ‘yes’ to both of these questions. Let me show you why.

Am I ever creative?
Have you ever found that you wanted to do something but you did not have the right tool / material to do it, and then you found some way of using another object / material and managed somehow? E.g. You opened a bottle or a tin without a bottle or tin opener or substituted an ingredient in a recipe with another ingredient. Have you every changed an activity in your course book or a resource book to match the needs of a particular group you teach? YES? There you go, you are creative!

Are my students creative in my lessons?
Do you ever get your students to speak about, write about, draw about or mime what they think? Do your students say things in the foreign language they never heard or read? Do you ever get them to think about rules, problems and how things and language work instead of just telling them? Do you sometimes give them tasks where there is no one possible answer and the answers will vary from one learner to another? YES? There you go, your students have opportunities to think creatively in your classes already!