8th March is International Women’s Day. It is a day on which we celebrate women’s achievements, raise awareness against bias and take action for equality, all with the aim of forging a gender equal world. Here at Pearson Spain and Portugal, we’d like to mark the day in a number of different ways.

Lesson materials

Firstly, we’ve prepared a reading lesson for your intermediate teens. The focus of the lesson is celebrating women’s achievements. Click to download the student worksheet  and the teacher’s notes. Feel free to adapt and use the material as you wish.

In the lesson, students will read about a scientist, a sports star, a billionaire business executive and an activist, all of whom are women. Unless we’ve been very careful as teachers, our students are likely to have been exposed to more male role models in these categories than female.

We’re in the realm of gender stereotypes and it’s important. With the material we provide our students we can affect the choices they make, such as the school subjects they choose, we can affect our students’ career aspirations, in short, we can affect the people they go on to become. So it’s important to eliminate bias and present a gender balanced view of society.

Gender equality guidelines

International Women’s Day isn’t about trotting out platitudes once a year, it is about making real, permanent change. Pearson has long since been committed to inclusivity and equality in everything we do, but did you know that Pearson is the world’s first learning company to create gender equality guidelines? These guidelines, developed in close collaboration with the Fawcett Society are used to develop all coursebooks, digital resources and qualifications. To read more about them click here and to download the full guidelines click here.  As the guide states ‘The word choices, charts, graphs, illustrations and photos used in our materials all have the power to shape thinking and reinforce beliefs about gender roles…this matters because stereotypes limit children by presenting them with a specific set of acceptable behaviours.’ The guide really is worth reading and reflecting on. You can also listen to the latest issue on the Pearson English Podcast to learn more about gender equality in general and what Pearson is doing to help make it a reality.

#ChooseToChallenge 

To show support and solidarity with International Women’s Day you can strike the #ChooseToChallenge pose by raising your hand in the air and taking a selfie.

Over in the marketing department at Pearson Spain & Portugal we’re proud to support International Women’s Day

First row: María Ramirez, Gloria Vivanco, Carmen Sanz, Laura Piñeros
Second row: Michael Brand, Luis Mendez, Sandra Roney, Inma Perez

You can share your picture on social media with the hashtag #ChooseToChallenge. Here’s mine on twitter. Who’ll join me?

If you like the frame, you can. The selfie cards come from the International Women’s Day website.

Music to learn to: new playlist 

My excellent colleague Laura Piñeros has added a new playlist to our Pearson Music to Learn to Spotify channel. From Aretha Franklin’s Respect, to Destiny’s Child Independent Women to Katy Perry’s Roar there’s a great collection of songs from powerful female artists. Happy listening!

Further lesson resources

In addition to the lesson we’ve prepared above, there is also lots of fantastic material for you classroom on the International Women’s Day official website.

From everyone at Pearson Spain & Portugal, we hope you join us in showing support for INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY 2021
#ChooseToChallenge