Teaching about conspiracies is the most fun I can have in a professional setting. Like my class presentation, I love to challenge my adult students to think critically about historical events, especially when those events are connected in the zeitgeist with an erroneous claim that a secret cloak and dagger government organization planned the tragic event (they're always tragic, with the exception of the moon landing conspiracy).
Certainly, there are plenty of real evil government conspiracies in recent history (injecting blacks with syphilis, experimenting with acid on unwitting volunteers in the military, and basically everything that the CIA did in Central and South America). But somehow those events are just not interesting enough to capture the anger and imagination of the collective tin-hatters out there.
As I mentioned before, critical thinking and healthy skepticism are crucial tools for young learners, and I'm looking for better ways to teach these ideas to them.
Cloak and dagger government organizations involved in conspiracies is a topic most students would love to participate in. This idea could be used in some many ways. It could fill a term worth of class time (or more). Students can practice all aspects of learning English through this topic. Practicing speaking in a debate class would be a lot of fun and this could be a good idea for a writing assignment, too.
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