Date: March 15, 2005
Level: Pre-Intermediate +
Downloads: This Lesson (Word Doc) | Class Handout (Word Doc) | Class Handout (PDF)

THE ARTICLE

The British military is in crisis today following the release of a long-awaited government report into bullying in the Army. The highly critical report was prompted by widespread allegations by young recruits of bullying, and by the mysterious deaths from gunshot wounds of four young soldiers, aged 17 to 20, at an Army training camp near London, between 1995 and 2002. The committee that produced the report accused the Army of hiding the true causes of these deaths and recommended police to “think murder” instead of the Army’s conclusion of four suicides. The report criticized the Army for failing to prevent unacceptable levels of bullying, gang rape, sexual harassment, racism, and other abuses of its soldiers. The committee said it had insufficient statistical data to ascertain how much bullying there really is in the Army, which means the true level has been understated. The committee also accused the Army of encouraging a culture that considered certain new recruits as “weak” and therefore targets for bullying. It stated, “In recent years, attempts have been made to implement what (the armed forces) termed 'zero tolerance', but much bullying by both superiors and peers will continue to go unreported unless the culture changes.”

WARM UPS

1. CHAT:  Talk in pairs or groups about the British Army / your country’s military / bullying / a soldier’s life / army camps / racism in the armed forces …

To make things more dynamic, try telling your students they only have one minute (or 2) on each chat topic before changing topics / partners. Change topic / partner frequently to increase conversation.

2. ARMY BRAINSTORM: Spend one minute writing down all of the different words you associate with the word ‘army’. Share your words with your partner / group and talk about them.

3. BULLYING: Talk in groups about bullying. Were you bullied at school? What kind of bullying did you see? Who was the biggest bully? Did you bully a younger brother or sister? Is there bullying in your office? What should happen to bullies?

4. ZERO TOLERANCE: In pairs/groups, create a ‘zero tolerance charter’. Write down five reasons why bullying is bad. Share these with other partners/groups, until you have ten reasons. In your original pairs/groups, list these reasons in order of ‘seriousness’ – the most serious at the top. Show your list to another group and provide feedback.

5. BULLY OPINIONS: (a) Discuss these opinions with your partner. (b) Add a second half to each opinion by writing a comment after each ‘but’.

1. Bullying is a natural part of all societies and cultures. [but …. ]
2. Weak people must fight back against bullies. [but …. ]
3. Bullies are weak people. [but …. ]
4. People who are bullied should report the bullying to parents / teachers / employers. [but …. ]
5. There should be zero tolerance of bullying at all levels of society. [but …. ]
6. Bullying leaves unacceptable mental and physical scars on the victims. [but …. ]
7. A bully that causes his/her victim to commit suicide is a murderer. [but …. ]
8. It is a primary role of schools to stamp out bullying. [but …. ]
9. Boys/Men are bigger bullies than girls/women. [but …. ]
10. Bullying is character building. It makes the victim tougher. [but …. ]

PRE-READING IDEAS

1. WORD SEARCH: Students look in their dictionaries / computer to find collocates, other meanings, information, synonyms … of the words ‘government’ and ‘report’.

2. TRUE / FALSE: Look at the headline and guess whether these sentences are true or false:

1. The British military is in crisis today.  T / F
2. A government report criticized the British Army for bullying.   T / F
3. Very few British soldiers complain of bullying.  T / F
4. Four young soldiers died from mysterious gunshot wounds.  T / F
5. A government report accused the British Army of murdering four soldiers.  T / F
6. The report said there were acceptable and normal levels of bullying.  T / F
7. There is more bullying in the British Army than the committee reported.  T / F
8. Bullying in the British Army is now a thing of the past.  T / F

3. SYNONYM MATCH: Match the following synonyms from the article:

(a)	military	accusations
(b)	crisis	inadequate
(c)	critical	finding
(d)	allegations	a pickle
(e)	conclusion	equals
(f)	harassment	start
(g)	insufficient	armed forces
(h)	ascertain	torment
(i)	implement	find out
(j)	peers	biting

4. PHRASE MATCH: Match the following phrases from the article (sometimes more than one combination is possible):

(a)	The British military is	of hiding
(b)	government report	data
(c)	widespread	in crisis today
(d)	deaths from	causes of these deaths
(e)	accused the Army	into bullying
(f)	hiding the true	gunshot wounds
(g)	failing to	tolerance
(h)	insufficient statistical	and peers
(i)	zero	allegations
(j)	superiors	prevent unacceptable levels of bullying

 

WHILE READING ACTIVITIES

1. GAP-FILL:  Put the words on the right into the gaps.

British Army bullies

The British military is in __________ today following the release of a long-awaited government report into bullying in the Army. The __________ critical report was prompted by widespread allegations by young recruits of bullying, and by the mysterious deaths from gunshot __________ of four young soldiers, aged 17 to 20, at an Army training camp near London, between 1995 and 2002. The committee that produced the report accused the Army of hiding the true __________ of these deaths and recommended police to “think murder” instead of the Army’s conclusion of four suicides. The report criticized the Army for failing to prevent unacceptable __________ of bullying, gang rape, sexual harassment, racism, and other abuses of its soldiers. The committee said it had insufficient statistical data to ascertain how much bullying there really is in the Army, which means the true level has been __________. The committee also accused the Army of encouraging a culture that considered certain new recruits as “weak” and therefore __________ for bullying. It stated, “In recent years, attempts have been made to implement what (the armed forces) termed 'zero tolerance', but much bullying by both superiors and __________ will continue to go unreported unless the culture changes.”

understated peers highly crisis levels causes targets wounds

2. TRUE/FALSE:  Students check their answers to the T/F exercise.

3. SYNONYMS:  Students check their answers to the synonyms exercise.

4. PHRASE MATCH:  Students check their answers to the phrase match exercise.

5. QUESTIONS: Students make notes for questions they would like to ask the class about the article.

6. VOCABULARY:  Students circle any words they do not understand. In groups, pool unknown words and use dictionaries to find the meanings.

POST READING IDEAS

1. GAP-FILL: Check the answers to the gap-fill exercise.

2. QUESTIONS:  Students ask the discussion questions they thought of above to their partner / group / class. Pool the questions for all students to share.

3. VOCABULARY: As a class, go over the vocabulary students circled above.

4. STUDENT-GENERATED SURVEY: Pairs/Groups write down 3 questions based on the article. Conduct their surveys alone. Report back to partners to compare answers. Report to other groups / the whole class.

5. ‘GOVERNMENT’/ ‘REPORT’: Students make questions based on their findings from pre-reading activity #1.

6. DISCUSSION:

1. What was interesting in this article?
2. What is your image of the British Army?
3. Are you shocked by the news in this article?
4. Do bullying, sexual harassment, racism, etc, exist in your country’s military?
5. Were you bullied at school?
6. What kind of bullying did you see?
7. Who was the biggest bully?
8. Did you bully a younger brother or sister?
9. Is there bullying in your office?
10. What should happen to bullies?
11. Are boys/men bigger bullies than girls/women?
12. Are boys/men subjected to different kinds of bullying than girls/women?
13. What should happen to army bullies?
14. If bullying causes the victim to commit suicide, is the bully a murderer?
15. Would you like to join the armed forces?
16. Will bullying ever be stamped out, to become a thing of the past?
17. Is bullying acceptable in the military to toughen people up?
18. Which is worse, emotional or physical bullying?
19. What would you do to stamp out bullying?
20. Did you like this discussion?
21. Teacher / Student additional questions.

HOMEWORK

1. VOCABULARY EXTENSION: Choose several of the words from the text. Use a dictionary or Google’s search field (or another search engine) to build up more associations / collocations of each word.

2. INTERNET: Search the Internet and find information on bullying. Share your findings with your class next lesson.

3. BULLIED: Imagine you are a new army recruit. Write your diary/journal entry explaining your feelings about being bullied.

4. ZERO TOLERANCE: Create a poster explaining the new “zero tolerance for bullying” scheme that will start in your school / office / company ….

ANSWERS

TRUE / FALSE:

1. The British military is in crisis today.  T
2. A government report criticized the British Army for bullying.   T
3. Very few British soldiers complain of bullying.  F
4. Four young soldiers died from mysterious gunshot wounds.  T
5. A government report accused the British Army of murdering four soldiers.  F
6. The report said there were acceptable and normal levels of bullying.  F
7. There is more bullying in the British Army than the committee reported.  T
8. Bullying in the British Army is now a thing of the past.  F

SYNONYM MATCH:

(a)	military	armed forces
(b)	crisis	a pickle
(c)	critical	biting
(d)	allegations	accusations
(e)	conclusion	finding
(f)	harassment	torment
(g)	insufficient	inadequate
(h)	ascertain	find out
(i)	implement	start
(j)	peers	equals

PHRASE MATCH:

(a)	The British military is	in crisis today
(b)	government report	into bullying
(c)	widespread	allegations
(d)	deaths from	gunshot wounds
(e)	accused the Army	of hiding
(f)	hiding the true	causes of these deaths
(g)	failing to	prevent unacceptable levels of bullying
(h)	insufficient statistical	data
(i)	zero	tolerance
(j)	superiors	and peers

GAP FILL:

British Army bullies

The British military is in crisis today following the release of a long-awaited government report into bullying in the Army. The highly critical report was prompted by widespread allegations by young recruits of bullying, and by the mysterious deaths from gunshot wounds of four young soldiers, aged 17 to 20, at an Army training camp near London, between 1995 and 2002. The committee that produced the report accused the Army of hiding the true causes of these deaths and recommended police to “think murder” instead of the Army’s conclusion of four suicides. The report criticized the Army for failing to prevent unacceptable levels of bullying, gang rape, sexual harassment, racism, and other abuses of its soldiers. The committee said it had insufficient statistical data to ascertain how much bullying there really is in the Army, which means the true level has been understated. The committee also accused the Army of encouraging a culture that considered certain new recruits as “weak” and therefore targets for bullying. It stated, “In recent years, attempts have been made to implement what (the armed forces) termed 'zero tolerance', but much bullying by both superiors and peers will continue to go unreported unless the culture changes.”