Building a war vocabulary

Note: This is a lesson based on recent news agency pictures of the war in Iraq. The print edition on Tuesday, April 1 included the pictures that accompanied the captions below. Copyright prevents us from publishing those pictures on the Internet. However, any teacher, anywhere in the world will surely be able to find effective pictures to use with this lesson. The captions are included here to give you guidelines for the kind of pictures and captions to look for.

These days newspapers around the world are unfortunately full of pictures of the war in Iraq. We might not like the facts, but the pictures and the captions with them are an opportunity to do some vocabulary building – words and phrases that will surely be repeated often.

Look at the pictures you are given and underline words and phrases in the captions that you think are related to war. Use the pictures and a learner's dictionary to write meaningful definitions. Then try and form complete sentences using your new words. Try your best to make them original and understandable.

Follow-up: Follow the coverage of the war in Iraq every day in the Bangkok Post and bring pictures to class. Take a few minutes with your class to add words and phrases to your vocabulary list. Also note how many of the words you have already defined are repeated many times.

OUR STORY FROM THE BANGKOK POST

US marines from the 15 Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) fight a pitched battle at the port in Umm Qsar, southern Iraq, 23 March. They came under fire early this morning and returned first machine gun fire, then more substantial arms including 'javelin' rockets and mortars. — AFP

U. S. marines, military police members from 4th Company, 4th Battalion, and part of the Marine Corp. escort a group of Iraqi soldiers dressed in civilian clothes on the road north of the town of Basrah on March 24. A defiant President Saddam Hussein said invaders sent to topple him were trapped in Iraq after five days of war, but the U.S. commander of the invasion said his forces were closing in fast on Baghdad. — REUTERS

MEDIVAC
Two US Army soldiers duck while a helicopter takes off as they stand beside the body of an Iraqi fighter on a stretcher prepared for medical evacuation at a captured airfield in southern Iraq 24 March. The dead and three Iraqi wounded prisoners of war (POWs) were airlifted by a US Marines helicopter to the medical station at the forward base of 3rd Infantry Division. — AFP

Iraqi children collect food parcels distributed by British Royal Marines from 42 Commando as they bring the first humanitarian aid to Umm Qasr, Southern Iraq, 25 March. — AFP

Iraqis shout in the street following an air strike in Baghdad March 26. At least 15 burnt corpses lay in a popular residential area of Baghdad, apparently killed in a U.S.-led bombing or missile raid. An Iraqi Information Ministrry official said the strike had resulted in "many many casualties". — REUTERS