Rescuing "Los 33"

 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. (Genesis 1:3)

Rescuing the 33 trapped Chilean miners has become a concern around the world - our eyes and ears (for many, even their prayers) have been and are still on Chile. We have suffered with the miners and their families during their long ordeal of over two months underground; just like distant members of a large family, we've followed all steps to ensure they would be rescued. Now, as one by one is coming out and the meticulous operation of raising them to the surface unfolds, all express their deepest gratitude for the happy outcome, Chileans in general are proud (and delighted with such international media frenzy), and everywhere in the world overjoyed  people are celebrating not only the miners' safe and sound "return to life"- their rebirth -, the effort of the rescuers but also the miracle of technology.

All this got me thinking about introducing updated news and realia into classes.

At CNN you have an interactive map that is being permanently updated as the miners are being rescued. Besides a very clear map from where a lot of information can be taken (we can also use it for adjective degrees), there is a picture of each of the trapped miners in which you can click on in order to have some more information on them. Here you have even more infos on who the trapped Chilean miners are. Their ages and other personal information as well as their roles underground can be used to practise adjective degrees or verb tenses. Here CNN's interactive gives a 360-degree sweep of the site of the Chile mine rescue.
For more information click...
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/10/13/chile.miner.television.moment/index.html?iref=NS1
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/10/13/chile.miners.online.traffic/index.html?iref=NS1
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/10/13/chile.miners.rescue/index.html?iref=NS1
As usual, CNN STUDENT NEWS has great material we can use as described here in a previous blogpost.
So now watch this:


BBC also has an extensive coverage of the rescue operations
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11527129
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11489439
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special_reports/chile_mine/  - all the information one needs -

even the miners' daily routine at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11170852 - why not use this with our students? We can ask them to write down a diary page or once their ordeal is coming to an end, ask them to describe a typical day using the simple past.
With weaker students or lower levels, we can use http://voxy.com/stories/news/chilean-miners-clash-over-who-will-come-out-last,2149/ .
Voxy - LEARN A LANGUAGE FROM LIFE - with news from around the world, VOXY can be used as a resource for EFL students to help them learn English. They can listen to the full (but always very short) text; they can read the article and by clicking on the highlighted words they not only hear their correct pronunciation but also add them to a "study list" which can be used for games and quizzes. In this case, we can also introduce / review some grammar topics such as verb tenses, adjective degrees (again) or ordinal numbers.
There is always the option of a NO COMMENT news video, for example
http://www.euronews.net/nocomment/2010/10/13/chile-first-miners-reach-the-surface/ to brainstorm ideas, vocabulary and knowledge on current events, for descriptions, for feelings, a great feature for secondary students! As they put it "At euronews we believe in the intelligence of our viewers and we think that the mission of a news channel is to deliver facts without any opinion or bias, so that the viewers can make their own opinion on world events."

As always, comments and suggestions are welcome. Why don't you share your ideas as well?