South Africa’s glorious win at the Rugby World Cup dropped into classrooms this term, through our awesome English at Once worksheets that always focus on hot-off-the-press stories.  Students would have been able to read about Siya Kolisi and Makazole Mapimpi and enjoy a wide range of cartoons celebrating the victory. And Cyril Ramaphosa’s celebratory newsletter about the Bok win provided a fabulous opportunity for the study of emotive language.

It has been a busy few months for our team. Producing worksheets based on current issues means that we have to be on the hop, keeping up to date with what is happening. These are just some of the trending issues that reached classrooms in the past few months:

• Johnny Clegg and Robert Mugabe: obituaries
• The children’s petition on the climate crisis to the UN (with Greta Thunberg and South Africa’s own Ayakha Melithafa)
• Eliud Kipchoge, the fast Kenyan who broke the two-hour marathon barrier
• The best age for teens to be dating
• The controversy around putting the SANDF in the Cape Flats
• What we would do if “likes” were to disappear from social media
• The star-gazing attributes of the little dung beetle
• Reviews of the new Lion King movie
• Minentle Miya, our chess champion who is only in Grade 3
• Constitutional Court says spanking of children no longer allowed in homes

Our latest reviews from teachers using these worksheets, carefully crafted to cater for students from Grades 7–12, speak for themselves:

“Truthfully, they are my greatest resource and I cannot imagine teaching without them. I always get excited when I see an e-mail from you in my inbox. You are so creative in the way in which you link texts for the intertextual questions. I have learnt so much  by reading your texts and questions.”

“You have given me so much pleasure over the years that this is a short note to express my gratitude to you and your team for your vision of South Africa through scrutiny of the country’s journalism, its poetry, cartoons and advertising.”

“I’ve been meaning to send you a mail for ages to thank you for all of these brilliant resources. Our students are benefitting so much from your carefully constructed questions and your entertaining, intriguing and relevant resources.”

If you want to bring these resources into your English lessons, all you need to do is send us an email at info@englishatonce.com. You will hear from us almost at Once 🙂

Picture credit: AP Photo/Christophe Ena