After making voting easier and even finally bringing peace to Japanese/ Chinese relations, our resident Agony Aunt is back to use the tools that we learn on our CELTAs to solve problems personal and universal, big and small. Today it’s a bit of a biggie from one of our readers:
Dear Auntie Alex
Since I started teaching abroad and found out that most people in the world are not C of E, I have begun to doubt all most previous beliefs and it has left me a bit confused. My biggest question is: how can I decide if God exists?
Thanks
Worried, TEFL teacher from Warrington
Dear Worried
First of all, you can stop worrying because you have come to the right place. Many people have tried religion and philosophy to solve these problems to no avail, but TEFL actually has several simple techniques that can solve this dilemma for you once and for all without even leaving the classroom.
The first one is simplicity itself, a class survey. Get pairs of students to write sentences together of things they think are true for all, almost all, most, many, some, a few and hardly any of the people in the class. Great language for generalising in IELTS Speaking Part Three! They then check with the class by making their sentences into questions and finding out with a show of hands, e.g. “We think most people are wearing socks their mother bought for them. Are you wearing socks your mother bought for you?” (Hands up for yes).
For the next stage, you introduce your weightier ideas and students predict what percentage of the class it is true for, then show of hands to check. Slip in your God question, and let classroom democracy do your work for you!
The second idea is a little more complex, but also gives you more data to go on. Hand out one piece of blank paper to each student and get them to write the sentence stem “If God didn’t exist…” on the top line. They then pass this to the person on their right. They complete the sentence on the line below with their own ideas, e.g. “…my father would be out of a job”. They then fold the paper so only the bottom half of the sentence can be seen and pass again. The next person writes a whole sentence linked to the one they receive on two lines, e.g. “If your father was out of a job…” (new line) “…you would have to live in a cardboard box in the middle of a lake”, folds halfway down, passes etc. After the sentences come back to their original writers and they read them, do the same with “If God existed…”. Take all the sheets of paper home and decide which theory is more convincing and/ or pleasing. And there you have it- peace of mind and 2nd conditionals practice in one!
All the best
Auntie Alex
Does anyone else have some world issues or personal problems that are embarassing them. Just leave an anonymous message below and she will deal with it as soon as she can.