SESSION 25: EXERCISES FOR DISCUSSION AND FINAL TASK
2. EXERCISES FOR DISCUSSION:
2.1 ANCESTORS: How different would their life be from today? Was it better or worse than today?
- family life
- stress
- transportation
- food
- entertainment
- safety
2.2 DISCOVERIES: What are the most important ones ever made? Rank them and explain why they are the most important to you?
- fire
- how to use metal
- the computer
- penicillin
- the printing press
- television
- the wheel
- others
2.3 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) What springs to mind when you hear the word ‘ancestors’?
b) What do you think about what you read?c) How interesting is this news to you?
d) How important a discovery is this?
e) How do you think our ancestors started a fire?
f) Do you have any experiences with starting fires?
g) What do you think life was like a million years ago for our ancestors?
i) What do you think early humans would make of our modern world?
j) Do you think early humans were happier than we are?
k) Did you like reading this article? Did it made you think?
l) What would change in our understanding about our ancestors if scientists knew what the early humans used fire for?
m) How do you think the knowledge of how to use fire spread around the prehistoric world?
n) What do you know about early human life in your country?
o) What do you think of meat that is cooked over an open fire?
p) What other things do you think early humans used fire for?
q) Do you think early humans were happier than we are?
r) Apart from fire, what other important discoveries have taken place through History?
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 IN THE ORAL SESSION.
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:
- Life from our ancestors who lived at the beginning of the 20th Century with life from today is very different. Express your opinion.
- How have certain inventions affected our development in life and changed our lifestyle.
There are many inventions, which affect our development in life and changed our lifestyle, but the best one in my opinion are the smartphones. But not only there are advantages in this marvellous invention, there are some disadvantages too.
ReplyDeleteOne of the most important advantages of this technological device, is the posibility of being connected all the day by phone or on the Internet, you can receive mails, text messages, calls or read the newspaper, using smartphone.
Another great advantage of this fantastic invention, is that it is pretty useful when you travel, ypu can use it as a GPS for directions or use it as a camera, nowadays phones have aproximately between 8 and 12 Mpx.
But, on the other hand, to be connected is not always a advantage sometimes it is a enormous disadvantage, especially it is imposible to disconnect from work, or prevent people bother you outside working hours. Sometime this situation is very stressfull and harmfull for our lifestyle.
Apart from smartphones, although for my is the best, there are many other inventions which have had a big influence in our lives such as cars, microwaves, air conditioning... all this inventions make our lives easier than years ago.
LIFE FOR OUR ANCESTORS WHO LIVED AT THE BEGINING OF THE 20TH CENTURY WITH LIFE FROM TODAYS IS VERY DIFERENT.
ReplyDeleteLife for a farmer who lived at the begining of the 20th Century who produced his own food with life from todays people who buy food on internet is completely diferenet. New technologies have changed everything!
To start with, life is diferent because human race has improved the transports. Every body konws how important the train was for the industries. Modern transports such as plane, train or car, make the distances shorter because let moving us around the world in a short time. Traveling from Europe to America in one day was imposible for our ancestors.
Secondly, the comunications are very diferent too. Everybody has mobile phone, so keeping constantly in touch with relatives, friends, mates, clients, wherever and whenever you want is surprisingly easy these days. However, sometimes it is extremly estressful.
Finally, internet, television, press, robotic technology, electrical appliances, we are rounded of new technologies and advanteges which make us the life easier. It is dificult to say where is the end because human race discovers seem never stop.
To sum up, todays life is very diferent and better than life for our ancestors. Although , we are too much focusing to improve our lifes with new technologies and it would be better avoid important problems such as starvation, poverty and illnesses. Fuerthermore, we have to care our world. Our industrialized society is damaging the enviroment producing climate changes. But this is other subject.
ANGEL MOLINA
People have always been trying to improve their lifestyle and men and women have been thinking and making objects and process in order to achieve it. That’s the reason of an enormous amount of inventions, some of them useful and a lot of them nothing practical objects.
ReplyDeleteThere are objects that they have changed our lives completely as for instance: washing machine, computers, mobile phones or medical devices as scanners. Can you imagine how many hours that would be lost in washing our clothes or how many days an important document would need to go round the world?
On the other hand, all those things so practical that we have invented, they have served simply to change our needs. So, it has changed what we eat today why TV program we will see.
However, there are certain inventions that countries have believed they were very important to obtain and, finally, they only serve to kill us, as for example nuclear or chemical weapons, instead of improving our lifestyle.
To sum up, new technologies have a maxim: if it is useful, then you must use it, if not, you have to throw it out.