SESSION 5: EXERCISES FOR DISCUSSION AND FINAL TASK
EXERCISES FOR DISCUSSION:
HERE ARE SOME QUESTIONS AND STATEMENTS WHICH YOU CAN THINK ABOUT AND TRY ASKING YOURSELF BEFORE YOU COME TO OUR DISCUSSION ON WEDNESDAY:
a) Is it true that large families are normally associated to religion? In what way/not?
b) How can anyone who cares about the future of the planet go about overpopulating it like this?
c) Is overpopulation associated to the third world countries and to uneducated women?
d) What´s really wrong with the world is violence, avarice and callousness. All of the problems in the world could be solved if there were good people. It´s a qualitative, not a quantitative issue.
e) If you see the world in purely physical terms, then of course the larger the population, the less resources are available to each person, each one gets a smaller sliver of the pie.
f) If you have more children, each child cannot get the attention of the parents, in terms of time and energy, that the child from a smaller family gets. Aren´t these families depriving their children of the attention they need to develop optimally? And aren´t they also depriving them of the enrichments which, let´s face it, only money can buy?
g) Is it accurate to say that children who grow up in small families are happier? More secure? More altruistic?
h) A lot of the security in large families comes from the older children raising the younger ones. Is this fair to the older children, specially to the first daughter, who often has to shoulder much of the responsibility for her younger siblings?
i) A mother of a large family will work herself into exhaustion if she doesn´t learn to prioritize.
j) In almost all rich countries where people have large families, the government ends up giving large doles to support the children. Are quite generous child allowances an unfair drain on the taxpayers?
k) Some large famous families like Jolie-Pitt and the Beckhams give us an image of large families as ideal. We see photos of Jolie-Pitt family spending their leisurely weekend in places like Venice. Do you think this image is real? Do you think this image is positive for our society?
l) With so many people in the world we have passed our sustainable limits for both of our major food and energy sources, grains and fish, as well as the fact that we are very quickly reaching our fres water limits.
m) 3.6 billion people are barely getting enough to eat with more than 1 billion of them in total abject poverty. And let us not forget that somewhere between 10 and 30 million children die every year of the worst possible death, starvation and starvation related diseases.
n) We have to be conscious of the work of many great people throughout history to bring awareness of the catastrophic problems of exponential population growth and the disasters it will create when the sustainable limits of Earth are reached.
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 5, I will edit it in the blog so that everybody can learn from other people´s opinions. Choose one of these two options:
- 'Overpopulation will lead us to chaos and a disastrous future.' Express your opinion.
- Advantages and disadvantages to belonging/having a large family.
According to the statistics, the twenty-first century has suffered a huge increase in the world’s population; actually, looking back just two decades ago the average of people living on Earth has increased from two billion to seven more or less. Owing to this dense population, we have to face a number of serious problems as unemployment, deprivation and pollution.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, for so long overpopulation has been associated to the third world countries full of babies ravage by starvation and marginalized cities where women were unable to control birth rate. However, in developing countries religion and richness are considered to be the main reason for having large families, the truth is that the higher standard of living the young generations have, the fewer responsibilities and challenges they need, so due to the fact that they have no targets to fulfil unemployment and drug abuse are constantly raising.
Secondly, cities crowded with people are environmentally unfriendly; the reason is that light, heat, food etc...must be supplied artificially so the more natural resources are burnt up, the more pollution are created, needless to say that other problem related to overpopulation is that big cities and towns have to deal with roads crawling with cars, consequently high level of carbon monoxide is in the air, hence this leads to have an unhealthy planet with lots of diseases provoked by the environmental degradation we are suffering today.
All things considered, my personal view is that people tend to exaggerate with the theory that overcrowding is the main cause to destroy our planet, certainly it is also important, but we shouldn’t forget that the environment is untouchable but not the human being. Therefore, it is the Government’s responsibility not only to tackle the high level of accidental pregnancy and to limit the size of children, but to provide financial support to underprivileged families, struggling for building houses, supplying health, enhancing education system (lately, government have privatized almost everything) and reducing global inequality between richness and poverty in order to prevent a disastrous future.
In today’s world there are lots of ways to create a family so it is really different as it was some years ago. Families were constituted by at least for four or more children and it was a normal situation, but nowadays it is very strange as you see a family with more than three children. So we can wonder what is the best option, having lots of children or having only a couple.
ReplyDeleteHaving a large family has some positive aspects, for instance, children learn to take responsibility from they are very young, because older children learn to take care of the younger ones. Another advantage of having a big family is that children learn to share all sorts of things such as clothes, toys, books, whatever you can imagine so it makes them be really sociable and generous. Furthermore, there are another fact which is really important because among them this relation will be forever, although it always has exception as in everything. However, belonging to a large family has some disadvantages too, for example, the poorer their parents are, the less things they can enjoy and even if parents have some money. If parents do not have a great income, they will not be able to study to get a degree in order to have a good job in the future. So, living for these families is very different from those which do not have so many members in.
On the other hand, having a short family is completely contrary to the previous one. In the majority of the cases, economic problems is not a disadvantage because they need less money to get the same. But if parents earn a good salary, they will have granted a good education and a future. They also have the opportunity to visit lots of places so it can help them to get other point of views about real world. But on the contrary, they do not give importance to other facts as can be for example, the lack of effort they have to do in order to get the things they desire so it makes them be selfish and spoilt in many cases. That is the reason why I think short families are so different to large ones.
To sum up, large families learn things like responsibility, friendship inside their households, although they do not have material things or great luxuries. But on the contrary short families have lots of things and opportunities to do things but they usually do not give importance to the way they get them. Values are pretty different from one case to another.
MIGUEL RUANO
'Overpopulation will lead us to chaos and a disastrous future.' Express your opinion.
ReplyDeleteHumans have lived on Earth for a short period f time. Many species have survived, died and evolve since our planet was created. We seemed to be another Earth habitants but we are much more significant and we have influenced a lot in life and life destruction. I think in a big world as we are we could have enough room for everyone. But reality is rather different.
While a percentage of the world population starving, others waste food and resources. This is the very basic reason why we don´t provide balance on Earth. We work against nature equity. And maybe one consequence is the overpopulation in some parts of the planet (like China) and the isolation in others, like Africa.
We could share our efforts and resources. We could life in favor of Life on Earth. We could share and safe, only to satisfy our main needs. We could think in ourselves and in others at the same time. But we do not want, we don´t know how to do it. The odd thing is that not always in like that. When we are children we know the meaning of sharing, so clearly... What happens when we grow up? I recommend watching this nice video titled "Share Experiment" (ONG Acción contra el hambre): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoREXT8qT7g
Bárbara Poison
Overpopulation will lead us to chaos and a disastrous future
ReplyDeleteNowadays, if any of us was asked to name the main actual problems in our society, there will probably be a wide range of answers, such as: wars, terrorism, hunger or the economic crush, among others. Howerver, has anybody stopped to think about the fact that most of the aforesaid worries could be overpopulation direct consequences?
Overpopulation is a global ‘hot potato’ that affects us all, and numbers claim it has quadrupled in just one century. How can it be posible? First of all, it is mainly caused by high population density, that is, when too many people share the same limited area. This phenomenon is not only a significant issue in poor and developing countries, like India or China; but stands for a reality in our western civilization, as well.
Thus, the shortage of natural resources and crops in one remote village in India, may have a worldwide impact and deeply affect other countries in terms of emigration, exportations or political agreements, to name but three.
What is more, the world is already witnessing some human population consequences. For instance, according to environment, humans are exceeding the demand of natural resources in such an unconceivable way that Earth lacks sufficient time to renew its sources and provide us with the needed amount for every single being in this planet. What happens next is commonly known by the majority: higher prices of gasoline, increasing pollution due to the high level of industrialization, water shortage, deforestation, biorhythm disrupted by noise and light pollution, wars provoked by the lack of shelter and living space, privatization of basic public services, eccetera. In other words, a far worse quality of life ahead!
Some governments have started discussing about ‘birth control’ and ‘family planning’ as posible solutions to solve the problema. Solutions, regarded as ‘taboo subjects’, especially when it comes to aesthetics and religious morality. Nevertheless, the main purpose is, not only to make people think twice before having a second or third baby, but basically to make them be aware of their role in society, as responsable and sensible individuals capable of a global thought, instead of a selfish and self-indulgent attitude.
In conclusion, it is required from humanity a step forward in favour of a sustainable planet, where its inhabitants, as part of it, put into practice intelligent and respectful measures that enable human beings truly deserve a place on Earth!.