Sunday, February 28, 2010

SESSION 18: EXERCISES FOR DISCUSSION AND FINAL TASK

SESSION 18: EXERCISES FOR DISCUSSION AND FINAL TASK

2. EXERCISES FOR DISCUSSION

2.1 UNITED STATES: What would the World be like if there were only several giant countries or unions? Think of the main countries that would form the different unions, how strong they would become and the problems they would have:
  • Africa
  • Europe
  • Arabia
  • South America
  • East Asia
  • South Asia

2.2 CONTINENTS: What are the differences and similarities between Africa and other continents and land masses?

  • Africa and Europe
  • Africa and North America
  • Africa and South America

2.3 AFRICA DISCUSSION: Here are some questions you can try asking yourself before you come to our discussion on Wednesday:

a) What did you think when you read the headline?
b) What springs to mind when you hear the word ‘Africa’?
c) What do you know about the African Union?
d) Do you think Colonel Gaddafi will be a good leader for Africa?
e) What are the biggest things Colonel Gaddafi needs to do for Africa?
f) Do you think actions are more important than words?
g) What do you think the near future will hold?

h) What do you think of the idea of a United States of Africa?
i) Do you think African people would like to belong to a wider union?
j) What are the biggest challenges facing Africa?
k) Do you think there are other ways for Africa to escape disease and poverty?
l) What do you think the world would be like if there were just a few giant countries?
m) Why do you think South Africa views African union as impractical?

PREPARING A DISCUSSION IS FUNDAMENTAL:


THIS MUST BE DONE IN TWO DIRECTIONS:

FIRST, YOU NEED TO LEARN NEW VOCABULARY AND EXPRESSIONS THAT YOU WILL HAVE TO USE FOR THE DISCUSSION.

SECONDLY, YOU HAVE TO PREPARE THE TOPIC BY LOOKING UP INFORMATION IN THE INTERNET, BOOKS, ENCYCLOPAEDIAS.

THIS WAY YOU WILL FEEL MUCH MORE CONFIDENT AND AT THE SAME TIME YOU WILL HAVE MUCH MORE TO TALK ABOUT.

FINAL TASK:

HERE IS ONE FINAL TASK THAT YOU MAY DO IN ORDER TO COVER THE FOUR SKILLS YOU SHOULD FOCUS ON WHEN LEARNING A LANGUAGE: LISTENING, READING, SPEAKING AND WRITING.

Write a composition and leave it in the blog as a comment to Session 18, I will edit it in the blog so that everybody can learn from other people´s opinions.

Choose one of the following topics:

  • Express your opinion: 'The only way out for Africa is a AU'
  • Advantages and disadvantages for Africa becoming a political federation.

1 comment:

  1. It does not matter what kind of group you want to create, it is always a very hard challenge.

    If you analyse Africa, it is easy to see that the challenge is nearly impossible, taking into account the fact that it is a big continent made of more than fifty countries, most of them newly born whose governments are very unstable. We must not forget different races and religions live together in Africa no without a lot of problems.

    Other important question is that there are many natural resources, as gold or oil, which attract the interest of other countries that want to have access to those resources.

    As you can deduce I am not very optimistic about the African Union.

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