We want learners to become agents of change, deepen their understanding of real-world issues and build their capacity to be responsible towards others. In our recent webinar on ‘Teaching tips for Cambridge IGCSE™ and O Level Global Perspectives’, author Fleur McLennan shares engaging activities and ideas to use in the global perspectives classroom.
How can you help your learners to develop a preferred, negotiated and oppositional reading of a text? Why is it important to consider a variety of perspectives? Discover helpful insights and common challenges in Fleur’s session and perhaps take away a few ideas for your next lesson.
Global Perspectives webinar
Here are the accompanying slides to the webinar:
Answering your questions
We received a lot of questions from our participants throughout the live sessions. It would be difficult to answer them all in detail, but we have identified some common themes and Fleur has provided some advice on each.
Q: How can I support and encourage my students to become more confident in their abilities?
A: Try being relentlessly positive and always celebrate persistence, even if it doesn’t work out the way they had hoped. A simple activity like asking students, ‘What would you have done differently if you could do it again?’, as a verbal or written reflection. This encourages the use of metacognitive thinking and planning skills.
In the future, they will then adjust their writing, speaking, research, listening skills etc. to improve next time.
Q: Can you recommend some activities to engage students in discussions related to global perspectives topics?
A: You might begin by framing discussions around current events in your region or globally, using news items. Consider the power of a well-placed, open question that can stimulate emotions and encourage students to think about their opinions, as well as reasoning and argument formation. A question like ‘Should under 16s require a license to use mobile phone?’ can get students thinking about rule-making and rule-breaking, linking to many topics that are strongly relevant to developing the skill of communication. On the point of communication, set or negotiate some ground rules with your students before starting a discussion – turn taking, being respectful and responding to the argument rather than the person.
Q: What is the ideal class size for meaningful and rich discussion?
A: It depends on the type of discussion you want to have and what the end result will be. Small groups are great to encourage everyone to share their perspectives. Whole class discussions can be useful to get an overall view of what your students are thinking. Paired discussions can be helpful for having more developed dialogues. It is good to experiment with your class, reflect on what worked and what needs developing for next time.
Q: How can I help students who are struggling with their linguistic skills to prepare for global perspectives?
A: This is a tricky question to answer without knowing the individual students. However, there are many great intervention and differentiation strategies in the digital teacher’s resource, which can help with specific areas of concern with linguistic skills. Multi-lingual classrooms can be a great way of helping students to improve their language skills. In order to prepare for the requirements of this subject, students may need to identify areas that they are struggling with and explore strategies they could use to overcome them. Scaffolding, ‘chunking’ and dialogue are covered in the coursebook and teacher’s resource and can assist you with where to start.
Q: Which syllabus are the new resources for and when will they be available?
A: The second edition of our Cambridge IGCSE™ and O Level Global Perspectives coursebook is publishing in June 2023, followed by the digital teacher’s resource in August 2023. Both are available to pre-order now. The resources correspond to the updated Cambridge IGCSE and O Level Global Perspectives syllabuses (0457/2069) for examination from 2025. To find out more about the syllabus updates, please visit the website.
