ESL Activities: 5.Iceberg - This Is Who We Are

Theme: Migration and refugees

Key Learning Area: English - Studies of Society and Environment (SOSE)

Age Group: Secondary Lower (13-14) - Secondary Middle (15-16)

Resource Type: Handouts

Stimulus Name: Identity

Teaching Strategies

Distribute worksheet – ‘What you see is what you get’.

1. Ask students to think about themselves (their personal identity) and to use the boxes on the worksheet to list the similarities and differences between themselves and others that they think:

• would be easy to identify

• would not be so easy to identify.

Display OHT – Iceberg

2. Suggest that Australian society is like an iceberg with lots of easy to see similarities and differences between its peoples above the surface of the water. For example: skin colour, hair colour, body shape, language spoken, height etc.

However, below the surface there are also similarities and differences that are not so easy to see. For example: attitudes, feelings, beliefs etc.

3. Divide students in groups and distribute Iceberg Worksheet.

• Ask each group to write the similarities and differences identified on their worksheet, into the peaks above the water or the base of the peaks below the water.

•Brainstorm qualities needed in citizens to maintain harmonious relationships among people in Australian society. For example: open-mindedness, compassion, love, fairness, empathy, courage, acceptance, understanding etc.

4. As an individual task, ask students to finish the following: To maintain harmony, citizens of Australia . . .

5. As a concluding activity ask each student to write their sentence on a separate strip of paper. Combine strips into a class collage of ‘ideal characteristics of citizens in Australian Society’.

6. Their sentence should also be written in the shaded area of the Iceberg worksheet.

NOTE: ‘To maintain harmony in society, citizens of Australia . . .’,
student suggestions may include:

• . . . give each other a fair go
• . . . care about each other
• . . . challenge prejudice in themselves and others
• . . . should not be influenced by the media

Conclusion of Unit

Draw on the characteristics and qualities listed in the class collage to conclude the unit by challenging students to promote these qualities in themselves and others.

Worksheets to download
‘What you see is what you get’. (PDF)
Iceberg Worksheet. (PDF)
Display OHT – Iceberg (PDF)



Related Resources
ESL Activities 1: My Friends and Peers
ESL Activities 2: My Feelings About Myself
ESL Activities 3: Cultural heritage
ESL Activities 4: Different culture
ESL Activities 6: Pride and Prejudice
ESL Activities 7: What is Beauty?
ESL Activities 8: Who Am I?
ESL Activities 9: Journeys From Afar
ESL Activities 10: Our Paths to Australia
ESL Activities 11: A Mixed Bag of Apples
ESL Activities 12: Victims of Culture

Copyright Acknowledgement
Activities developed by teachers at Beverly Hills Intensive English Centre, NSW

2005

Beverly Hills Intensive English Centre

©2005 Drift1