Time magazine has named Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, Melinda Gates, and rock star Bono as its “Persons of the Year” for 2005. All won the annual award for their non-stop efforts to improve public health around the globe and reduce disease and poverty in Africa. Time’s editor Nancy Gibbs said she wanted to honor Bono and the Gates “for being shrewd about doing good, for rewiring politics and re-engineering justice, for making mercy smarter…and then daring the rest of us to follow”. Of course, they also have their own incredibly busy and successful careers.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is the world's richest charity. About 60 percent of its cash goes towards public health needs. Irish rock star Bono helped persuade world leaders at July’s G8 summit to double aid to Africa to $50 billion a year by 2010. He also talked them into erasing the debt of the 18 poorest African countries. In addition, he set up the “Live 8” musical and charity concerts with Sir Bob Geldof. Bono told Time about Bill Gates’ business sense and his ability to save lives. He said: “When Bill Gates says you can fix malaria in 10 years, [people] know he’s done a few spreadsheets.”

WARM-UPS

1. MY 2005: Imagine you are Time magazine’s Person of the Year for 2005. Quickly write down five reasons why you won this award (they don’t all have to be true!). Walk around the classroom and talk to the other “Persons of the Year” about your award. When you have finished, sit with your partner(s) and discuss which student is the best candidate for the award.

2. OTHER NOMINEES: Look at the people below. Do you think they could also have won the award for Person of the Year? With your partner(s), choose the three you would put at the top and the bottom of your list of Person of the Year.

Kofi Annan Roger Federer J.K. Rawlings Angelina Jolie Pope Benedict XVI

George W. Bush Mohammed El Baradei Hugo Chavez Ariel Sharon Michelle Wee

3. CHAT: In pairs / groups, decide which of these topics or words are most interesting and which are most boring.

Time / magazines / awards / Bill Gates / Bono / poverty / public health / politics / mercy / charities / debt / African / Live 8 / business sense / malaria / spreadsheets

Have a chat about the topics you liked. For more conversation, change topics and partners frequently.

4. 2005 AWARDS: In pairs / groups, make your choices for Person of the Year / Do-Gooder of the Year / Baddie of the Year / Fool of the Year / Star of the Year / Nice Person of the Year / Biggest Mistake of the Year / Sports Person of the Year / [Your category] Person of the Year. Change partners and explain your choices and reasons.

5. PAST WINNERS: Look at some past winners of the Time magazine Person of the Year award. What do you think?

• 2004 – George W. Bush
• 1999 – Jeff Bezos (Amazon.com founder)
• 1989 – Mikhail Gorbachev.
• 1982 – The computer
• 1975 – American women
• 1966 – Young people
• 1963 – Martin Luther King, Jr.
• 1940 – Winston Churchill
• 1938 – Adolf Hitler
• 1930 – Mohandas Gandhi

6. PERSON: Spend one minute writing down all of the different words you associate with the word “person”. Share your words with your partner(s) and talk about them. Together, put the words into different categories.

BEFORE READING / LISTENING

1. TRUE / FALSE: Look at the article’s headline and guess whether these sentences are true (T) or false (F):

a.	Bill Gates’ wife Belinda is one of three Time Persons of the Year.	T / F
b.	The winners ended disease and poverty in Africa.	T / F
c.	They were honored for rewiring politics and re-engineering justice.	T / F
d.	The Persons of the Year all have busy and successful careers.	T / F
e.	The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is the world's wealthiest charity.	T / F
f.	Bono helped persuade world leaders to triple aid to Africa.	T / F
g.	Bono was an organizer of the Live 8 concerts held in July.	T / F
h.	Bill Gates can fix malaria in 10 years via a few Microsoft spreadsheets.	T / F

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

a.	poverty	get
b.	justice	challenging
c.	mercy	wealthiest
d.	daring	plus
e.	incredibly	fairness
f.	richest	deleting
g.	persuade	very
h.	erasing	need
i.	in addition	awareness
j.	sense	kindness

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

a.	their non-stop efforts	his ability to save lives
b.	reduce disease	towards public health needs
c.	being shrewd about	and successful careers
d.	daring the rest of	malaria in 10 years
e.	their own incredibly busy	and poverty in Africa
f.	the world's	us to follow
g.	its cash goes	doing good
h.	persuade world leaders at July’s	richest charity
i.	Bill Gates’ business sense and	to improve public health
j.	Bill Gates says you can fix	G8 summit to double aid to Africa

WHILE READING / LISTENING

WORD ORDER: Put the underlined words back into the correct order:

Bill Gates & Bono - Time's Persons of 2005

Time magazine has named Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, Melinda Gates, Bono and as its star rock “Persons of the Year” for 2005. All won the annual award for efforts to non-stop improve their public health around the globe and reduce disease and poverty in Africa. Time’s editor Nancy Gibbs said honor to wanted she Bono and the Gates “for being good about doing shrewd, for rewiring politics and re-engineering justice, for making mercy smarter…and then daring the rest of us to follow”. Of course, they own their also have incredibly busy and successful careers.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is charity world's the richest. About 60 percent of its cash needs towards public goes health. Irish rock star Bono helped persuade world leaders at July’s G8 summit to double aid to Africa to $50 billion a year by 2010. He also erasing into them talked the debt of the 18 poorest African countries. In addition, he set up the “Live 8” musical and charity concerts with Sir Bob Geldof. Bono told Time about Bill Gates’ business ability to sense his and save lives. He said: “When Bill Gates says you can fix malaria in 10 years, [people] know spreadsheets a few he’s done.”

LISTENING

Listen and fill in the spaces.

Bill Gates & Bono - Time's Persons of 2005

Time magazine has ______ Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, Melinda Gates, and rock star Bono as its “Persons of the Year” for 2005. All won the ______ award for their non-stop efforts to improve public health around the ______ and reduce disease and poverty in Africa. Time’s editor Nancy Gibbs said she wanted to honor Bono and the Gates “for being ______ about doing good, for rewiring politics and re-engineering justice, for making ______ smarter…and then daring the rest of us to follow”. Of course, they also have their ______ incredibly busy and successful careers.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is the world's richest ______. About 60 percent of its cash goes towards public health ______. Irish rock star Bono helped persuade world leaders at July’s G8 summit to double ______ to Africa to $50 billion a year by 2010. He also talked them into erasing the ______ of the 18 poorest African countries. In addition, he set up the “Live 8” musical and charity concerts with Sir Bob Geldof. Bono told Time about Bill Gates’ business ______ and his ability to save lives. He said: “When Bill Gates says you can fix malaria in 10 years, [people] know he’s done a ______ spreadsheets.”

AFTER READING / LISTENING

1. WORD SEARCH: Look in your dictionaries / computer to find collocates, other meanings, information, synonyms … for the words ‘time’ and ‘magazine’.

• Share your findings with your partners.
• Make questions using the words you found.
• Ask your partner / group your questions.

2. ARTICLE QUESTIONS: Look back at the article and write down some questions you would like to ask the class about the text.

• Share your questions with other classmates / groups.
• Ask your partner / group your questions.

3. WORD ORDER: In pairs / groups, compare your answers to this exercise. Check your answers.

4. VOCABULARY: Circle any words you do not understand. In groups, pool unknown words and use dictionaries to find their meanings.

5. STUDENT “PERSON(S) OF THE YEAR” SURVEY: In pairs / groups, write down questions about who you think should be person(s) of the year in various areas / fields.

• Ask other classmates your questions and note down their answers.
• Go back to your original partner / group and compare your findings.
• Make mini-presentations to other groups on your findings.

6. TEST EACH OTHER: Look at the words below. With your partner, try to recall exactly how these were used in the text:

named non-stop reduce honor mercy daring

foundation persuade erasing Live 8 sense spreadsheets

DISCUSSION

STUDENT A’s QUESTIONS (Do not show these to student B)

1. Did the headline make you want to read the article?
2. What do you think of the idea of a “person of the year”?
3. Do you agree that Bill Gates, Melinda Gates and Bono should be ‘Persons of the Year’?
4. Why has Time magazine called them “Persons” and not “People”?
5. Do you think Melinda Gates should be a Person of the Year?
6. Who would you have voted as Person of the Year?
7. Who would you have voted to be last on such a list?
8. Do you think it’s fair that the “Person of the Year” is usually rich and famous?
9. What do you think of the three winners?
10. What do you think of the expression “being shrewd about doing good”?

STUDENT B’s QUESTIONS (Do not show these to student A)

1. Did you like reading this article?
2. What do you think about what you read?
3. Do you think Live 8 organizer Sir Bob Geldof might be upset at not being on the list?
4. Do you think Bono and Geldof made a difference at the G8 summit?
5. Do you think Bill Gates could / should do more for charity?
6. Do you think Bill Gates can fix malaria in 10 years?
7. Do you think rock stars know what they’re talking about when they get involved in world politics?
8. Do you have a business sense?
9. What do you think of the terms “rewiring politics and re-engineering justice”?
10. Did you like this discussion?

AFTER DISCUSSION: Join another partner / group and tell them what you talked about.

1. What was the most interesting thing you heard?
2. Was there a question you didn’t like?
3. Was there something you totally disagreed with?
4. What did you like talking about?
5. Which was the most difficult question?

SPEAKING

PEOPLE OF 2005: In pairs / groups, agree on three people for each of the following categories for “People of 2005”. Note down brief reasons why.

	CHOICES	BRIEF REASONS WHY
Woman of the Year	1. 2. 3.
Man of the Year	1. 2. 3.
Sports Person of the Year	1. 2. 3.
Idiot of the Year	1. 2. 3.
Most Dangerous Person of the Year	1. 2. 3.
Entertainer of the Year	1. 2. 3.

• Change partners. Compare your choices. Argue and agree on which three of your six choices you want to keep as possibilities for Person of the Year.
• Find a new partner. Agree on one person from each of your six choices.
• Return to your original partner(s) and talk about the “winners” in each category.

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 more information on Time magazine’s awards. Share your findings with your class in the next lesson. Did you all find out similar things?

3. STUDENT OF THE YEAR: A famous magazine has offered a $138,206,548 prize for the English Student of the Year award. Write a short essay on why you think you should get this award. Show what you wrote to your classmates in your next lesson. Who do you think should be Student of the Year?

4. LETTER: Write a letter to the editor of Time. Tell him/her who you think should have got the prize for Person of the Year and why. Show what you wrote to your classmates in the next lesson. Did anyone choose the same people?

ANSWERS

TRUE / FALSE:

a. T

b. F

c. T

d. T

e. T

f. F

g. T

h. F

SYNONYM MATCH:

a.	poverty	need
b.	justice	fairness
c.	mercy	kindness
d.	daring	challenging
e.	incredibly	very
f.	richest	wealthiest
g.	persuade	get
h.	erasing	deleting
i.	in addition	plus
j.	sense	awareness

PHRASE MATCH:

a.	their non-stop efforts	to improve public health
b.	reduce disease	and poverty in Africa
c.	being shrewd about	doing good
d.	daring the rest of	us to follow
e.	their own incredibly busy	and successful careers
f.	the world's	richest charity
g.	its cash goes	towards public health needs
h.	persuade world leaders at July’s	G8 summit to double aid to Africa
i.	Bill Gates’ business sense and	his ability to save lives
j.	Bill Gates says you can fix	malaria in 10 years

WORD ORDER:

Bill Gates & Bono - Time's Persons of 2005

Time magazine has named Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, Melinda Gates, and rock star Bono as its “Persons of the Year” for 2005. All won the annual award for their non-stop efforts to improve public health around the globe and reduce disease and poverty in Africa. Time’s editor Nancy Gibbs said she wanted to honor Bono and the Gates “for being shrewd about doing good, for rewiring politics and re-engineering justice, for making mercy smarter…and then daring the rest of us to follow”. Of course, they also have their own incredibly busy and successful careers.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is the world's richest charity. About 60 percent of its cash goes towards public health needs. Irish rock star Bono helped persuade world leaders at July’s G8 summit to double aid to Africa to $50 billion a year by 2010. He also talked them into erasing the debt of the 18 poorest African countries. In addition, he set up the “Live 8” musical and charity concerts with Sir Bob Geldof. Bono told Time about Bill Gates’ business sense and his ability to save lives. He said: “When Bill Gates says you can fix malaria in 10 years, [people] know he’s done a few spreadsheets.”

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