Während sich die Auricher Stadtpolitik sehr vieler Bäume entledigt, möchte die Landesregierung von Western Australia Vergleichbares mit den Haien vor der Küste von Perth machen: Eine neue shark catch-and-kill policy ist dort seit gut vier Wochen in Kraft, die es erlaubt, Haie von mehr als 3 m Länge in Strandnähe zu fangen und zu töten. Hintergrund: Surfer und Schwimmer sollen vor den zumeist tödlichen Hai-Attacken geschützt werden.
That caused a lot of protests and demonstrations not only on the Australian West coast but all over Australia. Unfortunately, class 10c in Aurich had to deal with the topic of “The Blue Planet” in their English lessons and the marine environment is part of this topic. So apart from learning some more skills to produce stylistically convincing speeches and letters to an editor, they had to write a class-test on this topic. Based on a news article from an Aussie source and quite a helpful graphic from the British Guardian on the topic of fatal shark attacks, they were asked to write a speech to either support the shark-killing policy or to argue against it.
Evaluating speeches: 10 c as a critical audience
Having their corrected and marked tests back, some speeches were delivered to the 10c audience, videotaped and published on the web, so that we could draw the attention of an overseas audience:
Luckily, we are having a pupil from our school in Sydney at the moment, so today we tried a little Skype-session which unfortunately didn’t work due to a lack of bandwidths on our side, but there’s hope for an Aussie feedback as we asked Anna to show the videos with the speeches to a class of hers in her school in Sydney.
Sype-attempt with Anna and her host sister in Sydney
We are waiting whether we’ll receive a feedback from Down Under and/or some more arguments, either in favour of killing sharks or of protecting them, of course, as we like a well-balanced view on this topic. Seems to be much easier to talk and discuss about killing sharks in Australia than about cutting down trees in Aurich as this is not part of an English lesson in Aurich, although it’s part of the topic of “The Blue Planet” as well, sigh…
Thanks to Philine for the technical assistance & hard work
and to Bufti Tim for providing us with the necessary equipment
>> Here are five speeches:
