SESSION 7: EXERCISES FOR DISCUSSION AND FINAL TASK
2. EXERCISES FOR DISCUSSION
2.1 HARMFUL: How harmful are these in your society and what laws are needed to prevent them from being harmful:
- alcohol
- nicotine
- marijuana
- caffeine
- heroin
- prescription drugs
- unborn children
- battered wives
- abused children
- the drinker
- traffic accident victims
- victims of drink-related violence
- people who live near bars/pubs
- everyone
2.3 HEROIN: Spend one minute writing down all the different words you associate with the word 'heroin'.
2.4 DRUGS 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 ‘alcohol’?c) How dangerous a drug is alcohol for you?
d) How can alcohol be more harmful than heroin?
e) What problems does your society have with alcohol?
f) Would the world be a better place without alcohol?
g) At what age is it OK (if at all) for people to start drinking?
h) Should people with alcohol-related diseases pay higher medical costs?
i) Should laws on alcohol be tighter?
j) Would it be possible to ban alcohol in a society?
k) Should alcohol be classified as a drug?
l) Why are politicians afraid to be tough with alcohol and cigarettes?
m) What laws would you pass about alcohol if you were president?
n) What are the most damaging drugs in your society?
o) Why did the report suggest putting cigarettes in the same category as cocaine?
p) Do you think we can ever get rid of the drugs problem?
q) Why do people take drugs?
r) Are drugs properly explained in schools or should there be more education about drugs in schools?
s) What questions would you like to ask Professor David Nutt?
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 7, I will edit it in the blog so that everybody can learn from other people´s opinions. Choose one of these two options:
- The 'botellón' in Spain is a very dangerous way of putting teenagers and young adults in contact with drugs, specially alcohol, and should therefore be banned. Express your opinion.
- Write a composition giving ideas on how to reduce the damage alcohol and other drugs cause to society.
The “botellón” in Spain has become the most popular entertainment at weekends among teenagers and young adults. Friday night or Saturday night you can see it in the length and breadth of our country.
ReplyDeleteNowadays, it is a big problem for several reasons. First of all, people who take part in that activity are getting drunk every time and they link it with the enjoyment. On the other hand there are people beyond all suffering the consequences, like neighbours without any chance to rest or walking through loads of rubbish next morning.
However, if a law forbidden them to do “botellón” it would be contradictory with other debates, like letting people smoke marijuana and decriminalize the consumption of other drugs. Governments from Europe must decide a solution and they have to be helped by experts on the subject. Everything in order to avoid the disaster of the United States of America between 1920 and 1930, when the government banned the sale and the consumption of alcoholic drinks.
In conclusion, the solution of this problem, because is a real problem, is to make people aware and warn citizens of the danger that exists and, at the same time, politicians should take decisions and they have to legislate on drug consumption.
First of all I must say that I do not believe in these kind of studies made by supposed experts. Sometimes they get conclusions inside a laboratory, ignoring many other factors they cannot reproduce there. Also many of these studies analyse silly subjects and many of them are contradictory.
ReplyDeleteIn particular, talking about alcohol and the rest of the drugs I would suggest legalizing all of them in order to control their quality and price which would avoid drug trafficking too.
In my opinion everybody is free to choose whatever they want to do with their lives and when people is banned from doing something they behave as children and disobey authorities.
Of course the most important risk of drugs is addiction and something must be done to reduce it, but if all the things which imply a risk in this word are banned, we will be allowed a few of them at the end.
It is well known that drugs cause many damages physically and mentally to the person but they also cause considerable harms to society as they have collateral damages such as child abuse, robberies or domestic violence. Moreover, governments spend huge amounts of money on treating deceases produced by drugs (lung cancer, IVH….)
ReplyDeleteNowadays the age of consuming drugs is earlier. For that reason, education is the base to bane drugs because the most important is not to start. In order of not becoming addicted. Children should be taught how to enjoy themselves without drugs because the users lose self-control, judgment, motivation, memory and the capacity of learning… Drugs do not reduce the day life problems but can cause bigger ones.
All in all, drug abuse and addiction are a major burden to society. I would like to life in a free society where there would not be many restrictions but unfortunately that is an utopia and people only react to punishment. Governments must take matters in this issue.