One of the biggest challenges in teaching English at the secondary level is getting students to connect the language with the world around them. Beyond learning vocabulary or grammatical structures, many teachers are looking for ways to teach English through topics that are meaningful, current, and relevant to their students.
It is increasingly important to incorporate authentic content that helps develop not only language skills, but also abilities such as empathy, creativity, critical thinking, and initiative. When English is linked to real-world projects and people who are making a positive impact on the world, learning takes on a much clearer purpose.
In The Big Picture, our textbook series for secondary school, we champion this very approach. In this article, we share the stories of two collaborators who are part of the project and who help students discover how English can become a tool for entrepreneurship, communicating ideas, and making a real impact on others.
Educational research confirms it. When students work with real content it helps to:
- increase motivation
- improve understanding
- develop deeper communication skills
Annie
From Australia, Annie Rogers is developing a technology project with a very specific goal: to improve communication for nonverbal people. Her story connects directly with key topics in secondary education, such as innovation, entrepreneurship, and social impact, and demonstrates that English is a tool for creating, undertaking, and solving real-world problems.
Discover her work and read the full interview below:
Quick intro about you. ex: What do you do, where do you live, what’s your project?
Hi. I’m Annie Rogers. I live on the Gold Coast, in Australia. I’m currently in my first year studying a Bachelor of Entrepreneurial Transformation at Bond University. I’m creating a product called the My Voice; Bluetooth Speaker Necklace. It is a small, lightweight Bluetooth speaker on a necklace chain, with a customisable, interchangeable pendant on the front. The product aims to restore eye contact for non-verbal people by projecting their voice from their chest, as if they were speaking, rather than having it come from their communication device.
How does the concept of “The Big Picture” fit in with or relate to what you do?
The concept of “The Big Picture” is often discussed in entrepreneurship, focusing on the broader context of your small-scale solution. Initially, I started this project to help my friend, but realised in the big picture, it can help so many more people. There are over 1.2 million non-verbal Australians, and over 7.5 million non-verbal Americans; that’s a lot more people than just my one friend.
Why did you choose to collaborate with Milton Education and The Big Picture?
I chose to collaborate with Milton Education and The Big Picture to share my story and entrepreneurial journey with other students and hopefully inspire them to follow their dreams and work towards their goals. I have learned a lot over the past 6 years and want to teach others what hard work and determination can achieve.
What you hope students take away from your authentic story?
I hope that my story inspires students to believe in themselves and realise that they are capable of absolutely anything they put their mind to.
Diana
Diana Chao is the founder of Letters to Strangers, one of the world's largest youth mental health organizations. Her work has impacted hundreds of thousands of young people worldwide through something as simple—and powerful—as letter writing. In the classroom, her story provides a platform for exploring global issues, emotional expression, and meaningful communication. Because, as she herself says, "Mental health can't be separated f
Discover her work and read the full interview below:
Quick intro about you. ex: What do you do, where do you live, what’s your project?
Hi hi! I’m Diana Chao, Founder and Executive Director of Letters to Strangers (L2S, @L2SMentalHealth), the largest global youth mental health NGO. We’ve directly impacted over 660,000 young people in 72 countries through anonymous and randomized letter exchanges in student clubs, a youth-for-youth curriculum taught to over 150,000 students, and grassroots advocacy from hotlines to training government agencies. I was born as an ethnic minority in an autonomous region of China and immigrated to the U.S. as a kid. Currently, I split my time between L.A. and London. Alongside L2S, I’ve been building Dear Posto (www.dearposto.com / @dearposto), a mobile game for teens and young adults that invites you on a storytelling adventure (with letter-writing, of course!) to build social emotional learning and resilience.
How does the concept of “The Big Picture” fit in with or relate to what you do?
Everything I do starts from the belief that we deserve the air that we breathe; that we should experience the dignity and chance to become someone our younger selves would be proud of. It means the “big picture” of mental health and wellbeing can’t be separated from the small, specific, intimate stories of individual lives, and it’s why our tagline is “mental health made personal”. My letter in the book came from my heart, and I hope it can resonate with something in yours, too
Why did you choose to collaborate with Milton Education and The Big Picture?
Because it reaches students in classrooms, which is exactly where Letters to Strangers started, and where young people often have the most important conversations about mental health. I was deeply pleased to see the way Milton integrates real stories and causes worth fighting for alongside the bigger picture of language education – language is used to share stories, hopes, and dreams, after all. To learn it and then to learn how to use it are not the same thing, and I wanted to be part of bringing them together.
What you hope students take away from your authentic story?
That someone, somewhere, understands you and cares for you. That you are not alone in the universe, in the most relieving, exciting sense of the phrase. That your stories are worth sharing – maybe writing about it, even just for yourself, is one of the most courageous and beautiful things one can do.
Descubre el resto de colaboradores en el siguiente post:
Working with real-life stories in the classroom also means connecting students to topics that are part of their present and future. Entrepreneurship, mental health, empathy, and social impact are not just educational content; they are essential conversations that help students develop a more critical, humane, and connected perspective on the world.
Annie and Diana’s stories show how English can become a tool for creating projects, sharing experiences, and generating positive change. Through their testimonies, students discover that learning a language can also be used to communicate important ideas, collaborate with others, and actively participate in society.
In The Big Picture, each story aims to connect learning English with real-life situations and projects. Because learning a language isn’t just about understanding texts or completing activities, but about developing the ability to express yourself, connect with others, and act in the real world.
We would like to thank Annie, Diana, and our entire team of collaborators for sharing their stories and being part of this project. Their work not only brings authenticity to learning but also inspires students to think big and discover new ways to use English beyond the classroom.
If you are interested in working with authentic content in your secondary school classroom, we would be happy to share more information with you.