SESSION 25: EXERCISES FOR DISCUSSION AND FINAL TASK
2. EXERCISES FOR DISCUSSION
2.1 ADVENTURE: Which would you go on? Say yes or no and why. If yes, what would you learn?
- submarine tour
- space flight
- Amazon stay
- South Pole walk
- climb Mount Everest
- walk across the Sahara
- sharks
- oxygen running out
- the pressure
- machanical failure
- unknown deep-sea monsters
- the dark
- the cost
a) What did you think when you read the headline?
b) Would you like to do a submarine tour?
c) What do you think of Richard Branson’s plans?
d) What do you think they’ll find at the bottom of the ocean?
e) What are the dangers involved in this project?
f) Do you think deep-sea dives to the bottom of the ocean would be popular?
g) Would you rather stand on top of Everest or see the bottom of the world’s deepest ocean? Why?
h) Is this Earth’s last frontier to be discovered?
i) What adventure would you like to go on?
j) What do you know about Richard Branson?
k) Would you call yourself an adventurer?
l) Have you ever pushed things to the limit?
m) What’s the longest amount of time you could spend in a submarine?
n) What do you think motivates Richard Branson to keep trying new adventures?
o) What’s the max you would pay to take a tour into space?
p) Do you think the Virgin Oceanic project will find lots of fascinating creatures?
q) Which will be more popular, Virgin Oceanic or Virgin Galactic? Why?
r) What questions would you like to ask Richard Branson?
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 25, I will edit it in the blog so that everybody can learn from other people´s opinions. Choose one of these two options:
- Do you admire entrepreneurs like Richard Branson? Express your opinion.
- To reach and explore the different places of the Earth and Space is good for the development of our knowledge and for Science. Express your opinion.
Knowledge takes time and means to be able to perform. So, if you do not invest in them, we will move away from knowledge and obviously we will fall into ignorance. Therefore, we must devote resources to explore new worlds, be they microscopic, wild, underwater or into space.
ReplyDeleteIn the old days, patrons were responsible for promoting knowledge and the arts. However, nowadays, this is a task that governments must promote, within the overall budgets and following a procedure sometimes unclear.
If we add that this is a time with a severe economic and financial crisis, where governments do not cease to cut budgets, especially in R & D, it is easy to understand the emergence of modern patrons on the world scene, as Richard Branson, although their motives do not seem entirely altruistic. But it is logical to think that a businessman does not do things for free, either as a service to society. On the contrary, that is an investment to make money in the future, is what makes the research proposal looks really serious and achievable.
In conclusion, I find very interesting and worthy to be any initiative in pursuit of human knowledge wherever it comes.