War

Advance Level

Unit 1: Video And Photograph

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Advance level esl/efl lesson plans on war for learning with an online tutor.

A Quote

Only the winners decide what were war crimes.

- Gary Wills

Idioms About War

Listen carefully the next time you watch another Hollywood action movie about war. It's likely you'll hear many of these idioms been used in the story.

1) Play possum - to pretend to be asleep, dead or injured in order to deceive someone.
Some soliders like to play possum because they are afraid to go into battle.

2) Lock horns with someone - to get into an argument with someone.
About ten players will lock horns today at the start of the tennis championship opening.

The Origin and Meaning of Idioms

Armed to the teeth

The soliders were well trained, armed to the teeth and appeared ready for anything.

This idiom originated in the 1600's among sailors. Before raiding a ship, pirates would arm themselves by carrying as many single shot gun weapons and cutlesses as they could carry on their body. They would even carry a knife in their teeth for single, hand-to-hand combat.

Unit 2: Reading

The Gettysburg Address

By Abraham Lincoln

Gettysburg , Pennsylvania
November 19, 1863

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty , and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Vocabulary Practice

Proposition: a logical statement that puts forward a claim to either true or false.
Conceived: to bring forth something,
Dedicate: give oneself entirely to a person or cause.
Consecrate: to give something entirely to a person, cause or activity.
Detract: to take away from.
Devotion: commitment to a purpose or cause.
Perish: to pass away or die.

Questions

1. The Gettysburg Address was regarded as one of the greatest speeches in American history. It was delivered by President Abraham Lincoln during the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg , Pennsylvania on November 19, 1863 . What did Lincoln say the soliders died for?
2. Is there any difference in the way that these soliders fought and lost their lives, to the way that soliders fight and die today?
3. In your opinion, is it important to remember those who have fought in wars?

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