Breaking News English

        

 

WARM-UPS

1. LANGUAGE: Walk around the class and talk to other students about language. Change partners often. Sit with your first partner(s) and share your findings.

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

Chinese / language / social developments / e-books / abbreviations / purity / cultural / guidelines / banned / vague meaning / acronyms / translations / time-consuming

Have a chat about the topics you liked. Change topics and partners frequently.

3. ENGLISH: What’s good and bad about it? Complete this table and share what you wrote with your partner(s). Change partners and share again.

	Good	Bad
Position in the world
Grammar
Use in your language
Alphabet
Travel
Getting a job

4. INVASION: Students A strongly believe the English invasion of other languages is a bad thing; Students B strongly believe the opposite.  Change partners again and talk about your conversations.

5. STUDYING: What’s most difficult about English? Rank these and share your rankings with your partner. Put the most difficult at the top. Change partners and share your rankings again.

pronunciation spelling writing speaking

grammar vocabulary writing punctuation

6. FOREIGN LANGUAGE: Spend one minute writing down all of the different words you associate with the term ‘foreign language’. Share your words with your partner(s) and talk about them. Together, put the words into different categories.

BEFORE READING / LISTENING

1. TRUE / FALSE: Read the headline. Guess if  a-h  below are true (T) or false (F).

a.	China has acted to stop English being used in its own language.	T / F
b.	A government department said English words abuse Chinese.	T / F
c.	The department said the purity of Chinese has not been affected.	T / F
d.	The department said there was no social impact of the use of English.	T / F
e.	There are rules for publishers on alternatives to foreign languages.	T / F
f.	It’s not OK to use English in a word combination with a Chinese word.	T / F
g.	All Chinese editors of publishers think the new rules are sensible.	T / F
h.	Company names like IBM do not need to be translated into Chinese.	T / F

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

1.	authorities	a.	counterparts
2	steps	b.	flood
3.	invasion	c.	rules
4.	abusing	d.	immediately
5.	disrupted	e.	action
6.	guidelines	f.	upset
7.	at will	g.	unclear
8.	vague	h.	officials
9.	equivalents	i.	damaging
10.	instantly	j.	as one pleases

3. PHRASE MATCH:  (Sometimes more than one choice is possible.)

1.	taken steps	a.	meaning
2	economic and	b.	of publications
3.	used in all types	c.	time-consuming
4.	purity of the	d.	impacts
5.	causing negative social	e.	to protect its language
6.	issued clear	f.	recognizable
7.	vague	g.	Chinese language
8.	acronyms that are currently	h.	social development
9.	translations would be	i.	guidelines
10.	IBM is instantly	j.	widely used

 

WHILE READING / LISTENING

GAP FILL: Put the words into the gaps in the text.

Chinese authorities have taken ____________ to protect its language from the increasing use of English and other languages. The People’s Daily Online website says, “with economic and ____________ development, foreign languages are increasingly being used in all ____________ of publications in China, including in newspapers, books, e-books and on the Internet”. China’s General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) said the ____________ of English words and abbreviations in Chinese texts is “____________ the language”. Its website stated English has, "____________ damaged the standard and ____________ of the Chinese language and disrupted the harmonious and healthy language and cultural environment, ____________ negative social impacts".		abusing causing invasion social severely steps purity types
Officials from GAPP issued ____________ guidelines on how all Chinese publishers must now act, saying: “It is banned to ____________ at will foreign language phrases such as English words or abbreviations with Chinese publications, creating words of ____________ meaning that are not exactly Chinese.” This means abbreviations and ____________ that are currently widely used in Chinese publications, such as WTO, GDP and even IBM, must now be ____________ with their Chinese equivalents. One ____________ at a Beijing publishing house said the translations would be time-consuming and ____________. He said: “I wonder how many people understand 'guoji shangye jiqi gongsi,’ when IBM is ____________ recognizable.”		replaced vague instantly clear confusing acronyms mix editor

LISTENING – Listen and fill in the gaps

Chinese authorities __________________________ protect its language from the increasing use of English and other languages. The People’s Daily Online website says, “__________________________ development, foreign languages are increasingly __________________________ publications in China, including in newspapers, books, e-books and on the Internet”. China’s General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) said the __________________________ and abbreviations in Chinese texts is “abusing the language”. Its website stated English has, "severely damaged __________________________ of the Chinese language and disrupted the harmonious and healthy language and cultural environment, causing __________________________ ".

Officials from GAPP __________________________ on how all Chinese publishers must now act, saying: “It __________________________ will foreign language phrases such as English words or abbreviations with Chinese publications, creating __________________________ that are not exactly Chinese.” This means abbreviations and acronyms that are currently widely used in Chinese publications, such as WTO, GDP and even IBM, must __________________________ Chinese equivalents. One editor at a Beijing publishing house said the translations __________________________ and confusing. He said: “I wonder how many people understand 'guoji shangye jiqi gongsi,’ when IBM __________________________.”

AFTER READING / LISTENING

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

vague

meaning

• 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. GAP FILL: In pairs / groups, compare your answers to this exercise. Check your answers. Talk about the words from the activity. Were they new, interesting, worth learning…?

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

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

steps economic books invasion abusing causing

act will vague widely editor instantly

STUDENT ENGLISH SURVEY

Write five GOOD questions about English in the table. Do this in pairs. Each student must write the questions on his / her own paper.

When you have finished, interview other students. Write down their answers.

	STUDENT 1 _____________	STUDENT 2 _____________	STUDENT 3 _____________
Q.1.
Q.2.
Q.3.
Q.4.
Q.5.

• Now return to your original partner and share and talk about what you found out. Change partners often.
• Make mini-presentations to other groups on your findings.

ENGLISH / CHINESE DISCUSSION

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

a)	What did you think when you read the headline?
b)	What springs to mind when you hear the word ‘English’?
c)	What do you think of English being the world language?
d)	How much has English got into your language? Do you like this?
e)	Do you have any negative feelings towards English?
f)	What do you think of China banning English words, phrases abbreviations and acronyms from Chinese?
g)	Is it possible for English to “abuse” another language?
h)	The world language has always been that of the strongest economic power. Will we all be learning Chinese one day?
i)	How much do you care about the purity of your language?
j)	Would you like English words to disappear from your language?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

a)	Did you like reading this article?
b)	Do you think all languages will disappear one day and we’ll all speak a world language?
c)	Why is it important to stop languages from dying?
d)	Do you think China’s actions could harm its economic progress?
e)	Is it sensible to ban abbreviations like WHO and replace them with Chinese equivalents?
f)	Do you think Chinese would prefer ‘guoji shangye jiqi gongsi’ or ‘IBM’?
g)	Where would you put Chinese on a list of languages we must learn?
h)	Is it easy to ban English?
i)	What would English be like if it banned foreign words?
j)	What questions would you like to ask the leader of China’s G.A.P.P?

LANGUAGE – MULTIPLE CHOICE

Chinese authorities have taken (1) ____ to protect its language from the increasing use of English and other languages. The People’s Daily Online website says, “with economic and social development, foreign languages are (2) ____ being used in all types of publications in China, including in newspapers, books, e-books and on the Internet”. China’s General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) said the invasion (3) ____ English words and abbreviations in Chinese texts is “(4) ____ the language”. Its website stated English has, "severely damaged the standard and (5) ____ of the Chinese language and disrupted the harmonious and healthy language and cultural environment, (6) ____ negative social impacts".

Officials from GAPP issued (7) ____ guidelines on how all Chinese publishers must now act, saying: “It is banned to mix at (8) ____ foreign language phrases such as English words or abbreviations with Chinese publications, creating words of vague meaning that are not (9) ____ Chinese.” This means abbreviations and acronyms that are currently (10) ____ used in Chinese publications, such as WTO, GDP and even IBM, must now be replaced with their Chinese equivalents. One editor at a Beijing publishing (11) ____ said the translations would be (12) ____ -consuming and confusing. He said: “I wonder how many people understand 'guoji shangye jiqi gongsi,’ when IBM is instantly recognizable.”

Put the correct words from the table below in the above article.

1.	(a)	stairs	(b)	ladders	(c)	strides	(d)	steps
2.	(a)	increases	(b)	increasingly	(c)	increase	(d)	increased
3.	(a)	of	(b)	for	(c)	with	(d)	as
4.	(a)	abused	(b)	abuses	(c)	abusing	(d)	abuse
5.	(a)	pure	(b)	purely	(c)	purity	(d)	purr
6.	(a)	caused	(b)	causing	(c)	cause	(d)	causes
7.	(a)	clear	(b)	clarity	(c)	clearly	(d)	clears
8.	(a)	may	(b)	would	(c)	might	(d)	will
9.	(a)	right	(b)	exactly	(c)	properly	(d)	correctness
10.	(a)	width	(b)	widen	(c)	wider	(d)	widely
11.	(a)	home	(b)	mansion	(c)	house	(d)	residence
12.	(a)	time	(b)	clock	(c)	seconds	(d)	date

WRITING

Write about English for 10 minutes. Correct your partner’s paper.

_____________________________________________________________________________

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_____________________________________________________________________________

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_____________________________________________________________________________

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_____________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________

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_____________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________

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_____________________________________________________________________________

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 out more about English around the world. Share what you discover with your partner(s) in the next lesson.

3. YOUR LANGUAGE: Make a poster about your language and its history. Show your work to your classmates in the next lesson. Did you all have similar things?

4. CHINESE: Write a magazine article about the invasion of English into the Chinese language. Include imaginary interviews with people who are for and against it.

Read what you wrote to your classmates in the next lesson. Write down any new words and expressions you hear from your partner(s).

5. LETTER: Write a letter to the boss of G.A.P.P. Ask him/her three questions about English. Give him/her three ideas on how to keep Chinese pure. Read your letter to your partner(s) in your next lesson. Your partner(s) will answer your questions.

ANSWERS

TRUE / FALSE:

a.

T

b.

T

c.

F

d.

F

e.

T

f.

T

g.

F

h.

F

SYNONYM MATCH:

1.	authorities	a.	officials
2	steps	b.	action
3.	invasion	c.	flood
4.	abusing	d.	damaging
5.	disrupted	e.	upset
6.	guidelines	f.	rules
7.	at will	g.	as one pleases
8.	vague	h.	unclear
9.	equivalents	i.	counterparts
10.	instantly	j.	immediately

PHRASE MATCH:

1.	taken steps	a.	to protect its language
2	economic and	b.	social development
3.	used in all types	c.	of publications
4.	purity of the	d.	Chinese language
5.	causing negative social	e.	impacts
6.	issued clear	f.	guidelines
7.	vague	g.	meaning
8.	acronyms that are currently	h.	widely used
9.	translations would be	i.	time-consuming
10.	IBM is instantly	j.	recognizable

GAP FILL:

China protects its language from English

Chinese authorities have taken steps to protect its language from the increasing use of English and other languages. The People’s Daily Online website says, “with economic and social development, foreign languages are increasingly being used in all types of publications in China, including in newspapers, books, e-books and on the Internet”. China’s General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) said the invasion of English words and abbreviations in Chinese texts is “abusing the language”. Its website stated English has, "severely damaged the standard and purity of the Chinese language and disrupted the harmonious and healthy language and cultural environment, causing negative social impacts".

Officials from GAPP issued clear guidelines on how all Chinese publishers must now act, saying: “It is banned to mix at will foreign language phrases such as English words or abbreviations with Chinese publications, creating words of vague meaning that are not exactly Chinese.” This means abbreviations and acronyms that are currently widely used in Chinese publications, such as WTO, GDP and even IBM, must now be replaced with their Chinese equivalents. One editor at a Beijing publishing house said the translations would be time-consuming and confusing. He said: “I wonder how many people understand 'guoji shangye jiqi gongsi,’ when IBM is instantly recognizable.”

LANGUAGE WORK

1 - d

2 - b

3 - a

4 - c

5 - c

6 - b

7 - a

8 - d

9 - b

10 - d

11 - c

12 - a

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