For our unit on entertainment, you are welcome to try this mediation task:
You’re on a video call with European friends discussing the cancellation of the Eurovision song contest, and that leads to how effective TV talent shows are at launching unknown artists’ careers. You have read this article about Operación Triunfo, one of the most successful talent shows in Spain ever. Summarise the main points of the article and the charts in it to contribute to the conversation in no more than 3’30’’.
[The length is a bit longer this time because the text is slightly longer than it should, and it also includes graphs (usually you would have 3 minutes).]
Click on any of the screenshots to download the worksheet.
If you think you are going to need extra help selecting the relevant information, or with some vocabulary, you may have a look at this annotated version.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, announced their decision to step down as senior members of the Royal Family last week. As it happens, I am dealing with current affairs and the media in my C2 classes. And as of next week, we will be talking about diversity and inclusion, tackling some aspects of race relations. That is why I decided to use this news story as an excuse to design some activities to link both units.
Watch this clip from BBC’s Newsnight where royal correspondents discuss their views on the subject (source). Pay attention to the underlined expressions related to ‘getting information’:
Click on the screenshot to open the video and transcript in a new tab
2. Read the following opinion article on the treatment that the tabloids (and the media in general) have given to the couple, and especially, to Meghan Markle as mixed-race (source). Some sentences have been removed. Choose from sentences A-G the one which fits each gap (1-6) best. There is an extra sentence which you do not need to use.
Click on the screenshot to download pdf file
The text includes a wide range of vocabulary, with some expressions which might actually be interesting to include in your wordstock; however, they may make it harder for you to understand the text. Should you have any trouble, you can click on this interactive version of the text on Thinglink:
3. Mediation in writing: You are a team of journalists working for El País in English. You have been asked to write a news story for their website on Harry and Meghan stepping down as senior royals.
El País is a serious newspaper. Therefore, they tend to use:
4. Follow-up: Share your views on Twitter. Use the hashtag #Megxit to be part of the conversation. [I opened a shared Twitter account for my students so that they would not need to use a personal account. Using Twitter provides real online interaction, and it seems only natural to use social media when discussing ‘the media’ in 2020].
How do you feel about #Megxit? Do you feel for them? Deep down, are you saying ‘good riddance’?
Do you support their decision to step down as senior members of the family?
Have they been harassed into leaving by the press, especially the tabloids?
Should they continue to be supported financially by the Crown (i.e. by British taxpayers)?
Christmas is around the corner. In the run-up to Christmas, businesses and brands release their very best ads, typically tearjerkers, to catch consumers off-guard and lure them to shop till they drop. I’m well aware of their persuasion strategies, of course. And yet, every year I find myself having a look at British Christmas ads, as they tend to be longer, and usually tell a story, which will allow me to exploit them in the classroom even further than ordinary ads. This is a selection of the ones I liked the most this year:
VISA
a rendition of Queen’s ‘Somebody to Love’ by real shopkeepers struggling to survive in the high street.
These are some of the speaking voices in English I like the most, and that I somehow consider ‘models’ of good pronunciation, stress, enunciation…At some points in life, when I have had to do public speaking, I have reminded myself of some of them, thinking, for example: ‘you should show the same poise as Audrey Hepburn when you’re speaking’.
To my mind, their voices are a delight to listen to and might prove a model to imitate when speaking English.
