Asylum seekers, refugees & migrants: Discuss

I teach, and have always taught, mostly adult-student-customers in private language schools. If you’re like me, you teach grammar and lexis, help students developing writing and listening skills, and focus on communication of meaning. Meaning, but not content. Not ideas. Or beliefs. Or values. Or knowledge or ignorance. Because, like me, you’re just an English teacher.

But my wise Delta tutor once made a useful distinction being just a teacher and being an educator, reminding us that we shouldn’t forget about being the latter. What she meant, I think, is obvious to anyone who sticks their head out of ELT for a moment, and pushes aside, if just for a moment, all the talk about exam performance and teacher accountability, and thinks back to the idea of a school teacher that predated our corporate model of an efficient, corporate school measuring its success in spreadsheet-ready KPIs.

Educators are more than just teachers. They’re part of a community, and perform a public service, helping their students think about and grow in ethical, moral and intellectual dimensions.

It’s the sort of description that normally makes me blush, because it feels so embarassingly far from any conception I’ve ever had of myself as a teacher. But last week, with those same adult-student-customers I’ve always taught, I got a glimpse of what it’s like to be both a teacher and an educator, helping facilitate a real eduucational experience and a community service.

Because we spent two class periods investigating and discussing the Refugee crisis here in Italy.

But just to be clear, I’m not the hero of this story. Her name’s Valentina. My only claim is that I got up the courage to do something that seemed daunting to me at first and went beyond my remit as “just a language teacher”.

First I’ll outline what we did over the two, 2-hour sessions, then I’ll relate some of the feedback I got from the students (which, frankly, got me choked up and was the inspiration for the whole preamble above).

Any given Tuesday

Throughout this year my classes have usually taken one of two patterns:

• At-home narrow reading + viewing/listing (i.e. a number of articles on the same topic)
• In-class pair/small group + T-guided discussion

Or:

• At-home intensive reading using Reading Circles roles
• In-class student-led small group discussion

Usually the second pattern followed the first, with a Reading Circles text based in some way relevant to the narrow reading that preceded it.

In other words, students come to class with at least of minimum of familiarity with and language relevant to the discussion (see my lesson on the French elections for another example).

This time, as in the French elections topic, I gave them more guidance than usual by providing them with a list of questions to consider. I also tried to vary the offered readings a bit more as I received one (valid I think) criticism that the Guardian articles I recommended were so obviously pro-Macron.

I’ve included the pre-reading selection as well as the questions I gave them as a PDF here: Refugee crisis articles

Art project by students at the European School, Varese. It recreates La Porta di Lampedusa.

DAY 1

In class, before discussion, we spent the first hour examining a Cambridge Exam-style REPORT writing task (using the sample texts on the pp. 25 & 35 of the Cambridge Proficiency Handbook for Teachers and pp. 33 & 49 of the Cambridge Advanced Handbook for Teachers. We hadn’t done one yet, and I thought it would be a good opportunity since, unlike with other topics, a number of the readings were so obviously reports.

After that, we had small group discussion, where students shared what they read and their opinions about it. The groups were slightly larger this time, with 5 people each, and I realized at once why I never do that.

There were too many silences, or too few people participating in the discussion. I’ve found that large groups need a lot more structure to work well, which is why I love the highly structured Reading Circles. If you’re not doing that, you need to nominate roles ― leader, note-taker, etc. So the discussion ended up a bit less energetic and engaged than I was hoping for.

The homework task was to both more reading and listening and write a report. I asked students to:

Write a report on facilities for asylum seekers/refugees in the area (the Province of Varese, if not Varese itself). You’ll have to do a bit of research. If you know of any informative articles/reports that explain the facts (in Italian, most likely) please share with me.

I encouraged students to read the local papers, and a number of students posted links to relevant articles (that in many ways revealed their feelings about it). I have both aspiring C1 and C2 students in my group, and so I gave them each a slightly differentiated task:

Advanced:

You have been asked by a visiting commission from the European Union to write a report about facilities and accommodations for refugees in the local area.

Your report should explain what facilities and accommodations exist, describe any problems with the structures/situations, and suggest any improvements that should be made.

Proficiency:

Same as above, but:
Your report should explain what facilities and accommodations exist, describe any problems with the structures/situations, and evaluate whether this system is adequate to dealing with the influx of asylum seekers as a whole.

Just to demonstrate it is possible to produce high quality Cambridge-exam-style writing with a very non-Cambridge style topic (which demanded some research, as well), I’ll share two very good examples (without my comments), one of each.

In a fit of Victorian coyness I’ve removed the names of the cities because in fact I didn’t verify if the numbers are exact (though perhaps, considering the point of this was to get to the facts, I really should have!)

SAMPLE 1

Report about facilities and accommodations for refugees in the local area

Introduction
This report aims to provide an overview of the current situation in hosting refugees in the province of V. It is based on the information published online by local press and institutions.

General findings
The Prefettura, which depends on the “Ministero dell’Interno”, is in charge of the reception of refugees on the territory and has the power to sign agreements with local operators that provide facilities and housing. At the moment it seems that approximately 1500 people are accommodated in this way. Additional accommodations are provided directly by the “Ministero dell’Interno”: 25 in V., 26 in M. and 35 in C.

Issues
The number of places available in these facilities is not enough with respect to the increase of refugees in Italy. Furthermore it is worth considering that people accommodated in these structures are those who have requested asylum, which are a small part of the refugees coming to Italy, and not all of them will get it. People who do not get the status of political refugee join the economic migrants that are not entitled to receive help from the institutions and are assisted by charitable organizations. I wasn’t able to find any news about the number of economic migrants in the V. province and where and how they are assisted.

Conclusions
Firstly institutions should plan in advance how to increase facilities to host the refugees even if it is difficult to forecast the needs. An increase for the next three years at least should be considered, because it appears unlikely that the immigration trend might change. Then it is recommended an improvement in the way of managing economic migrants with the aim of improving security and control of the territory.

SAMPLE 2

Facilities and accommodations for refugees

A growing number of refugees: Italian facilities in the spotlight
In the last five years the growing influx of refugees and asylum seekers landing mainly in the Southern coasts of Italy has put a strain on the whole nation.

The Italian government, already weakened from the political and economical uncertainties, is trying to come up with a solution to the big issue of finding an accommodation to the asylum seekers that have landed in Italy.

The problem is due to the large number of immigrants reaching the Country and the consequent need to find decent facilities to host them with dignity.

Case study: V. and its province
To illustrate how the problem has involved towns and villages all over the Nation from North to South, our team has monitored the reception of immigrants in this city and in its surroundings. For example in the town itself one of the biggest facilities is an old hotel which hosts 80 migrants and that it is managed by a local charity foundation, while in the province of V. the reception centre located in B. hosts about 180 people and it is headed by a private cooperative. Almost all the accommodations inspected resulted in old derelict buildings that previously were used as hotels. During the inspections refugees complained of being forced to live in rooms for 6-7 persons each and to have only one bathroom every 25-30 people. The quantity of food provided was also questioned, together with the lack of activities to keep them busy during the day.

Unfortunately this is only the tip of the iceberg because the real problem is that these facilities should be a short-term solution but the red tape and the bureaucracy make refugees’ stay longer and harder.

Conclusions

It is clear the complexity of the situation and that the influx of migrants is not going to slow down in the foreseeable future. Nevertheless, this problem has to be faced as soon as possible to give refugees a ready answer to their needs while respecting their dignity. This answer should come from the EU which should provide faster procedures for the initial screening and referral of the migrants as well as the allocation of specific funds.

Day 1 conclusions:

Everyone seemed to agree that this was a big, nay, overwhelming topic. And it was difficult to get to the actual facts about the local situation, let alone the national situation. The local press is full of very opinionated reports and attention-grabbing headlines, which often didn’t make it easier to follow the story.

However, a number of students were able to produce excellent reports. In the future I’d like to actually spend more time fact checking, or at least checking sources. I don’t teach EAP; I teach CAE, and everybody knows that on Cambridge Exams there is no obligation to the truth. What matters is your ability to argue. It wouldn’t be such a step for me, in this case, to simply ask that students provide a list of references and insist that they be as accurate as possible (even when inventing an inspection-report style as in the second writing sample provided above).

DAY 2

Pre-class reading:

In addition to the articles from the local papers (in preparation for writing the report), I had students do a guided listening on The Palace of Shame from BBC Radio 4’s From Our Own Correspondent . (If you want to have a listen, the report is from 1’30” to 7’20” in the recording. Here’s my activity as PDF with my own transcript 90PalaceofShame)

It’s a report from 2012 that I’d only used once before (more on that below), on the plight of asylum seekers coming to Italy, many of whom, once they got refugee status, had little choice other than to find lodging (illegally) in a massive squat in Rome. I asked students to consider what had changed, and what hadn’t, in the intervening years (based on their reading of EU/Italian policy, institutions and accommodations, laws, etc.)

In class I planned to discuss the listening, but most of the class would be devoted to interviewing our special guest.

I was extremely lucky to be able to call on the help of a friend (and former student) named Valentina who has a master’s in immigrant and refugee law and currently works in a local reception center.

An aside: on special guests

Scott Thornbury had mentioned it in various Dogme-style contexts, but having a “special guest”, an authority on some topic, always struck me as something you did for elementary schools, or if you lived in an L1-English country (where special guests are a dime a dozen). But two things changed my mind:

1. IATEFL 2017 scholarship winner Katy Muench mentioning it again in her IATELF presentation on challenging stereotypes in Turkey. You don’t have to lecture to your students, she was saying ― just bring someone else in to do it ― or to testify to the reality your students barely know. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard it, but it suddenly seemed like something I just had to do.
2. Look carefully at my self-justification above (...if you lived in an L1-English country where special guests are a dime a dozen) and you’ll see reason number 2 quite clearly: I thought a special guest had to be a native speaker of English. But thanks to this year’s pushback against native-speaker hegemony (by Marek Kiczkowiak, TEFL Equity Advocates, and the many, many people on Twitter who sympathise with and advocate for the cause) I finally woke up to the fact that so-called “native-like proficiency” didn’t have to be a prerequisite for a special guest with authority and topic knowledge.

I’ve known Valentina for five years (and she’s been personally and professionally passionate about refugee issues for all that time). And I’ve been wanting to really dig deep into this topic with my students for the last two years. But until IATEFL 2017 I’d never put the two together.

Finally, with the scales fallen from my eyes, I asked Valentina (who, in her defense, is a highly proficient speaker of English and, what’s more important, clearly an authority on this topic) to come and speak to the class.

CASses, SPRARs, and other official acronyms

After some preliminary discussion of the Palace of Shame listening (in which Valentina joined one of the groups), Valentina stood up to introduce herself and answer questions about the situation for refugees and migrants in Italy.

Throughout the discussion, I functioned as a kind of secretary boarded the points from her explanations.

Students had questions answered about different legal statuses and treaties that migrants could be granted, the various types of structures refugees are housed in, the regulations that established them, why some towns have some and others do not, the process (or lack of one) guiding integration, and much, much more.

What amazed me was how little many of them actually knew about the local reality behind the screaming headlines (and where I live and teach, there are a lot of screaming headlines ― we’re sort of the spiritual homeland for the anti-refugee, anti-open borders movement). It’s not that all ― or even most ― of the students had negative feelings about immigration, it’s just that they had so little definite information about it which with to try and form an informed opinion.

Student Feedback

With ten minutes to go before the end of class I asked them to write down their answers to the following questions:

1. What did you learn?
2. How will this help you?
3. How useful is it to talk about “serious topics” like this in class.

There were 10 students in class ranging from upper high school aged (18/19) to about 50, with each decade in between well-represented. I’m going to quote them at length because I found so many of the answers thoughtful, eloquent and moving. My conclusions follow.

What did you learn?

• Many of the information provided in the classes were completely unknown to me. I have learned what journalists mean when they say that Italian bureaucracy is not helping to solve the immigrant issue.
• This topic helped me to become more informed about a problem that our society is facing. I listened to views but I didn’t know very much about immigration. I’ve learned much more about the difficulties to cope with the situation and I am more of aware of what has been done and what hasn’t.
• Today I’ve learned that in this world there are many people struggling for the rights and the facilities I’ve always had. Here, in Europe, we are very lucky, but sometimes we forget how lucky we are!
• I did not learn new things, but surely I have a deeper vision of them. That will help me because it is very important to think and behave considering the opinions of the people you get in touch with. (NB: In this student’s defense, they were rated as “already extremely informed” about the facts of the situation by other students; I interpret “did not learn new things” as I was already very informed about this issue.)
• This lesson I learned a bit more about the law process of the asylum seekers and I understood how it is difficult to explain it to people who aren’t dealing with it in everyday life.

How will this help you?

• Based on the information I have acquired, I will definitely read or watch the news with more awareness about the issue, even though we only scraped the surface of this topic.
• I often read articles about this kind of topics but it’s easy to look for news which supports your own opinion. Talking with different people lets you see the problems from different points of views which is very useful, both for discovering new aspects and for finding good arguments to support your opinion.
• This lesson helped me to organize better my idea about the issue and has been very useful to learn the specific language.
• This issue will help me in order to approach this people in a different way. It will help me to clarify my opinion about immigrants and refugees. To talk and discuss this topic in this way helps me also in not having common ideas of mistrust and distrust.
• This experience has been very useful for me because my knowledge of this topic was very bad, especially about technical aspects of reception centers, process related to asylum, timetable and people status. I’ve never gone in depth of this problem maybe because the news explains always the problems and I wasn’t interested to understand the topic, but the testimony of a person who works everyday in contact with this situation has given me good input to analyse the problem.
• What I’ve read about immigrants and refugees, what I’ve heard this evening from Valentina… will surely help me in the future to appreciate the social welfare I can enjoy here in Italy. It will also help me recognizing the need of the others, wherever they come from.

How useful is it to talk about “serious topics” like this in class?

• It’s difficult to talk about serious topics in a foreign language because you don’t know the vocabulary and you do not feel at ease to express your opinion in a polite way.
• In my opinion it is very useful to talk about serious issues like this also during a language lesson because it can help you understanding…
• For me it is absolutely necessary to talk about real issues in order to learn English because only if I’m involved and determined to know or to express my opinion, I’ll be able to improve the language. That has always been my experience.
• I think talking about “serious issues” like immigration is fundamental to create an elaborate and not ignorant opinion, especially because these topics happen to be controversial and therefore a great source for debates to spread new ideas and improve or develop the ones we already have.
• Talking about serious issues like immigration, politics, etc. it is really important in my opinion firstly because it is necessary to be aware of “what’s going on” in the world and secondly because opinion exchange helps with opening our minds and learning new things. For example, thanks to Valentina, this evening I’ve learnt and thought about issues that I barely knew before…. It was all relevant information that as a citizen I should have known before.
• Discussing serious issues is better than discussing lighter topics because you are forced to express your opinion and it is more likely to find someone who disagrees with you.
• Before this class, I thought that this issue would have been too difficult for me, because it’s really complicated and hard, but now I can say that I really learned something thanks to my classmates and our special guest.
• I think that it is useful talk about real problems during class, especially as I’m not a good reader. This is a way to forme me to inform and even if it takes energy it’s interesting. This is useful and I like this way to learn new vocabulary and expressions.

Inspirational conclusion

Sometimes in English teaching it’s easy to forget that education is anything more than teaching grammar and vocabulary. But consider a comment like this, from above:

…thanks to Valentina, this evening I’ve learnt and thought about issues that I barely knew before…. It was all relevant information that as a citizen I should have known before.

Reading this after class, and re-reading this again as I write, I get a lump in my throat . That’s English class the student is talking about.

And for me it’s the difference between “just teaching English” and playing a small but real part in a person’s education.

Because education is about more than verb tense. It’s about more than phrasal verbs. It’s about what all those students said, and did. About investigating. About inquiring. About learning new modes of expression and new ways of seeing. About acquiring the ability to assess and interpret new information and opinions. About opening your mind to new possibilities and new realms of knowledge. And about being able to use all these things in your confrontation and collaboration with other people and the society around you.

And the students in my class did all that while learning and practicing new vocabulary and Cambridge ESOL-approved written discourse (see those reports for examples of both).

Like I said, I’m not a hero. But to me, Valentina is. And my students are. As are all those educators like Katy Muench and Steve Brown and Linda Ruas and Judy Boyle who insprired me at IATELF to get off my ass and try to make it happen.

Did these two sessions change anybody’s world? I don’t know for sure. But the student feedback is eloquent testimony to how the same-old English class may be the perfect vehicle for just that.

Next steps:

I’d definitely like to work on improving some of this for next year (call me crazy but I don’t think this refugee crisis is going away any time soon). Of course, what made this so magical was Valentina’s participation ― and I don’t know that I can guarantee that for the future. What else can I do?

• It would be interesting to actually begin the unit with a survey of beliefs and understanding about the topic in order to see to what extent these things change. Clearly, the feedback was all positive in this regard, but it would have been interesting to get a statement from the beginning.
• Or, perhaps, better: rather than providing students with a list of questions I’d like to have the students create their own list before we started. We’ve done that with other topics: we spend 20 minutes at the end of class generating questions to guide their research on a topic. (It also helps me select pre-class reading texts). By starting with questions rather than opinions (as in the proposed survey) students aren’t forced/encouraged to take a position. Of course, it takes some knowledge to ask good questions, but it’s still a start.
• Find/refine the source list. Especially lighten the load a bit. It would also be interesting to compare and examine claims in competing articles. That was surely a byproduct of the day 1 discussion, but I’d like to critically examine some of the claims as a class. (Although I definitely avoided populist dailies or alt-right news sources, which obviously would have created a different dynamic in terms of critical reading).
• Modify the report task in a more EAP direction to get students to cite sources and compare them (even using Italian-original sources).
• Provide new opportunities for writing and feedback. Only half the class actually did the report task; I’d like to include other non-exam style options for the others.
• Roleplay: I’ve had this idea for some time of a role play based on the very real issue of settling refugees in the local community (a mayor of a nearby town was just in the papers saying he would refuse refugees by “chaining himself to the gates” of the disused school that was intended to house them). A recent blog post by Anthony Teacher got me thinking about preferring that to a debate-style task for actually helping the students examine different sides of the issue. I jettisoned an early idea when Valentina made me realize how little I understood of the situation. I hope to develop it ― with her help ― into something both realistic and useful.

And that’s it! Well, almost…

P.S. When I was looking for an authentic listening task for the students I remembered I had done something with the Palace of Shame text from the BBC ― when it was first broadcast a few years back ― but I didn’t remember I’d actually used it with a class. In fact, I had, with a group of post FCE high school students.

I found their post-listening writing. The task was simply to write a letter to the BBC expressing their opinion about the broadcast. Here’s one particularly eloquent final draft:

To the attention of the BBC reporter Alan Johnston,

Recently I listened to your report about migration across the Mediterranean Sea, entitled “Palace of Shame”, and I would like to express my appreciation of its humanity and of its timeliness.

As an Italian resident, I hear news about boats sinking, countless arrivals and the growth of illegal immigration in Italy almost every day and I think that telling and informing people about the existence of this reality is of great importance if we hope to improve the situation. In fact, this is not only an Italian problem; all people able to do so should contribute in order to solve this situation in a way that is favourable for everyone.

In recent years, more social, political and religious problems led to the outbreak of wars in many of North African countries and, as a consequence, to the increase of migration of people that hope to find peace outside their country. In addition, on account of the disproportionate distribution of food and prosperity, Africans are the most inclined to leave their continent for better prospects.

Your article, denouncing the difficult situation of these people, also through personal experiences, induces us to reflect on its gravity and to ask ourselves what is our contribution to its solution( if one does exist) and if it is fair to mention the word ‘equality’ nowadays.

Kind regards,
Beatrice

Which goes to show what Judy Boyle, with her NO Project, and many others (except, perhaps, coursebook publishers) already know: that high school kids may be sufficiently capable, mature and ready to thoughtfully deal with “serious issues” like this too.

The French Elections: listening lesson and rough plan

I wrote Part 1 of this post on 26/4. Post updated: 07/05 (Election Day). Scroll down for Part 2 of this post, including a description of what I did in class, student feedback, and some chock-full-o’-PARSNIPs #eltwhiteboards.

With the French Presidential Elections less than two weeks away, I thought it was a good time to talk politics in class. Why? I mean, I teach in Italy. Talking about other people’s politics means there may be a big knowledge gap.

But it’s also emotionally easier. And so many of these are the big issues I’ve talked about teaching: immigration, security, terrorism, the future of the EU that are 100% relevant to my students’ lives — even if it’s not the sort of relevance usually granted when the syllabus topics are Cooking, Shopping and Sports.

As the clock is ticking till the event itself, I wanted to throw together some resources and a basic plan that I can use, change and expand upon in 3 classes (1 teens upper-int/advanced, 1 advanced adults, 1 upper-int adults) over the next two weeks.

Here I’ll share the resources and a rough plan. They’re the Big Blocks — don’t take what follows as a step by step plan. I won’t use/do everything, but there’s more than enough to hang a 2-hour class on.

If the materials are relevant to your teaching context, by all means: take, modify, improve, use and share.

The rough plan

I’ve sent background reading/listening and the discussion questions (see below) to the advanced group with these instructions:

1. Find out some information about both politicians (you can also read/support your reading with reading in Italian ― it would be interesting to see if there’s an “Italian perspective” to compare with the UK/US perspectives in the resources above).
2. Try reading some of the comment sections to the articles ― you may find contrary opinions and good language for debate.
3. Keep a list of articles/videos you consulted (completely or partially ― I’d like to know what you found useful)
4. Write down useful vocabulary related to politics and the issues and consider the discussion questions (and write other questions if you have them).

This is our normal pattern. Read and research a topic before class, come in and talk about it. So this level of doing stuff is not new — it’s just that I’m steering them a bit more time because we hadn’t discussed it previously.

As of now, in class the plan is to do (some of) the following:

• Board the issues and info about the candidates
• The BBC listening
• Discuss the questions/issues
• Do a roleplay I’m still cooking up

Here are the materials:

Listening: The Front National on BBC Radio

The listening is a clip from BBC Radio 4 Today. The program can be a source of great clips because they’re short, the speakers are professional but unscripted, and the links are permanent and well-labeled.

Listening: FN: We want out of EU and Schengen

Activity/Transcript: FNwewantoutofEUandSchengen_transcript

In brief:

The interview is between the presenter and Jerome Riviere, the defence advisor for Marine Le Pen and the Front National.

I produced a transcript and some Cambridge Exam Listening Paper Part 1-style gist questions (I’ve got a number of aspiring exam takers).

There’s also a brief transcription exercise where I’m going for, among other things, what-clause sentence frames for debate (“What I’m trying to say is…”)

Yes, Riviere does make some slips with the English (dropping final -s or definite article, and a bit of muddling about immigrants pouring into Europe), but I don’t think it’s worth dwelling on. However, I was once criticized in an observation for using a recording of a non-native speaker as a model but not pointing out all the speaker’s errors to the class — so you make the call.

A note about the facts. I don’t know what the UK thought about being in the Europe in 1958; I don’t know how many police it would take to secure the French border. But I do know that Riviere’s implication that the Champs-Elysee killer was a foreigner abusing Schengen freedoms is false. On the contrary, the killer was French. I think it’s important to highlight this in relation to Riviere’s claim that those critical of him are using “fear” as a tactic.

Background Reading + Viewing

Here’s a brief Guardian article that sums up each candidate briefly. If your students don’t know anything about the candidates this is enough to get started.

The text is interesting because the titles (and video subtitles) provide a stronger, soundbitey description of the candidates, whereas by reading just the candidate description it might be harder to get the intended picture of each candidate.

Trying to define each of claims in the subtitled video could be worth an entire discussion class alone. What is patriotism? Nationalism? The far right? What does it mean to defend national (e.g. French) culture? Against whom?

I might have students do just that — try to define them, and work in groups to come up with an agreed upon definition.

Here are other explainer videos if you can give them time to do some pre-class work. With all it would be useful to discuss the source and slant.

• Marine Le Pen’s Rise in Forgotten France (Guardian)
• French voters take the yellow chair challenge (BBC)
• Marine Le Pen steps down as Front National President (in French)
• Marine Le Pen: France’s Trump is on the rise (Vox)
• Interview with journalist Gary Younge (first 7 or so minutes is about French election)
• Emmanuel Macron: France’s Next President? (Wall Street Journal)
• Le Pen vs Macron: French Election 2017 | IN 60 SECONDS (American Enterprise Institute)
• French election: What would Emmanuel Macron’s presidency mean for Britain? – BBC Newsnight
• Macron v Le Pen: policy comparisons (Financial Times)
• The French Election Process Explained (technical explanation of the process) (Financial Times)
• Emmanuel Macron: ‘I’m not a naive optimist’ BBC News

Discussion Questions

These are some discussion questions I came up with for one group that’s going to do some of the background reading/viewing at home before class. I gave them the questions to think about as well but we’ll see where the conversation goes.

• What are some of the big issues?
• What is the “political narrative” of the candidates in the news?
• Do the videos/articles you read seem to support one candidate or another?
• Why are many people alarmed by the rise of Marine Le Pen?
• What has led to her increasing popularity?
• Is the far-right really surging across Europe? Consider England and America but also Holland and Austria? If so, what does that mean for Europe?
• Are these candidates both “outsiders” as some have claimed?
• Why do some people consider outsiders appealing?
• What are the pros/cons of electing an outsider?
• What makes a candidate “presidential”?
• How much does experience count in an election?
• Who is “favored” to win? Should we be confident in these predictions?
• Are there any scandals related to the candidates? Has it affected them? Should it?
• Should politicians from other countries openly support one candidate or another during the elections?
• How much can a president do about terrorism, immigration/migration, etc. ― the big issues?
• What would a victory for either candidate mean for Italy?
• What parallels to these candidates exist in Italy? What’s similar/different? Why are they popular? How much support do they have? How are the French and Italian political systems different (basically)? What effect does this have on the nature of the candidates?
• If you were French, who would you vote for? Why?

 

In an update or further post I’ll describe what happened in the class.

ELECTION DAY UPDATE:

 

As the polls have closed and it looks like Macron is going to be the next president of France, I wanted to take a few minutes to describe what I did with the above material in three classes (an Advanced group, an Upper-Intermediate group, and a 4-person class of mixed Advanced/Upper-Int teenagers). I’ve also included some feedback my students gave me about whether politics in general, and the French election specifically, were of interest and relevance to them.

Advanced

This group of 11 students did research on the topic by choosing from among the resources I had selected for them or finding their own. Some did look elsewhere — particularly one student who found that the Guardian articles were too obviously slanted toward Macron, and so found a number of articles critical of him.

In class, they shared:

1. What they had learned about each candidate’s history and personal life, including the stories about Macron’s wife and Le Pen’s family history re the Front National. Students were in small groups, they reported the info to me and I boarded it. Then we had a whole-class discussion about the extent to which these things (apart from the issues) could/should influence your choice. We also discussed (at my provocation) why there was little talk of Le Pen possibly being the first woman president and whether a victory for Le Pen would be a victory for women. The class said she was not a woman candidate in the sense that she didn’t make women’s issues a part of her campaign.
2. The 6 biggest issues for the election (according to them: the EU, the economy, terrorism, immigration, security)Again, they shared info in groups then reported to me. I then had the students rank the issues 1-6 in order of importance. As usual, group ranking activities are brilliant for generating discussion in small groups.
3. We did the BBC listening activity — but we were out of time before we could continue with much discussion.
4. Homework. Here’s a writing task I created with a significant excerpt from the brilliant “Undecided”, a New Yorker article by writer David Sedaris that is no less relevant despite being written about the 2008 US election:

You see this article in a newspaper regarding the upcoming election:

I don’t know that it was always this way, but, for as long as I can remember, just as we move into the final weeks of the Presidential campaign the focus shifts to the undecided voters. “Who are they?” the news anchors ask. “And how might they determine the outcome of this election?”

Then you’ll see this man or woman — someone, I always think, who looks very happy to be on TV. “Well, Charlie,” they say, “I’ve gone back and forth on the issues and whatnot, but I just can’t seem to make up my mind!” Some insist that there’s very little difference between candidate A and candidate B. Others claim that they’re with A on defense and health care but are leaning toward B when it comes to the economy.

I look at these people and can’t quite believe that they exist. Are they professional actors? I wonder. Or are they simply laymen who want a lot of attention?

To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. “Can I interest you in the chicken?” she asks. “Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?”

To be undecided in this election is like pausing for a moment to ask the flight attendant how the chicken is cooked.

I mean, really, what’s to be confused about?

Write your letter to the editor saying whether you agree with the writer and his understanding of this election ― or his assessment of politics in general. You may refer to other elections than just the French one.

I’m waiting for their letters.

Student Feedback

I wanted some feedback so I asked students 3 questions: what they liked, what they would change, and (for my own curiosity — this was not a goal of mine) whether reading about the candidates changed their mind about the election, the issues, the candidates. The responses:

What did you like about the lesson?

• I appreciated sharing opinions. I went into deep about my information about candidates of French elections.
• The subject was interesting and the dialogue was open.
• I found it useful.
• The lesson was very open-minded and “informative”. I liked the fact that we discussed a lot and we shared our ideas on very hot topics.
• I appreciate the material given and the structure of the lesson to focus on topics and go deeper on them.
• I liked the lesson and the fact that everybody has given his answer.
• I liked the topic. I liked the lesson because it gave us the opportunity to speak about a lot of different aspects. I liked the listening. The lesson was involving and useful to learn new things.
• The class was interesting. I like the comparison of different points of view about French candidates and their programs.
• I liked the topic and the fact that I learnt new words and expressions. I liked also the discussion part.

What did you not like/would you change about the lesson?

• It would have been interesting to know the opinion of the others. What would they have chosen?
• I felt uncomfortable discussing in my group about some issues (as immigration) because we had different point of views and with not enough time to explain well, not in our own language.
• Most articles were influenced by the political views of the authors and it was not easy  to distinguish between real and false information.
• We talked about politics and I don’t actually have a clear idea about that but that’s on me.

Did you change your opinion about either candidate?

• I confirm my opinion of the candidate I prefer.
• I didn’t change my mind, but I did increase my awareness about the political situation in France.
• I learned more about the candidates but I didn’t change my mind.
• They confirmed my opinion about both of them but I wouldn’t know who to vote for.
• Comparing my ideas to the ones of my classmates helped me to have a wider view about the topic. I didn’t change my mind but I always appreciate to listen to different opinions.
• Before today’s class I didn’t have an opinion on the 2 French candidates. Getting information about them helped me better understand their politics.
• Before this homework I wasn’t really informed on the French political situation. This topic and the way to explore it (videos, reading) has been very useful for me, more than other topics (like cinema, arts…)
• I didn’t change much my opinion because I wasn’t very informed before, anyway my research strongly confirmed my previous opinion.
• No, I haven’t changed my opinion.

Summary:

We spent a lot of time compiling information based on their reading, which meant there wasn’t a lot of time (after the listening) for whole class discussion at the end. This is one of the perils of “issues” topics that get beyond the individual — you want to give everyone the opportunity to get informed and support their ideas with information. But I did almost feel like sharing information was almost a way of avoiding debating some of the issues.

Interestingly, one student said they didn’t know what the group members really thought, but would have liked to; another said they felt uncomfortable sharing their personal opinion in the group. But these two were the only two to make comments like that — most seemed to think they successfully shared opinions and ideas with the group.

Everybody was positive about having investigated the topic and informed themselves about this political issue, with one student even praising this topic above other more conventional ones (that we have addressed) including cinema and the arts.

Upper-Intermediate

In this class with 13 students we talked about the election on two different Saturdays, dedicating about 45 minutes – 1 hour each time.

In the first class the students:

1. Used the phones to check the Guardian article summarizing the two candidates. One group researched Le Pen, the other Macron. Then paired up with a student from the opposite group and shared what they had learned. We boarded the issues and each candidate’s stand on them, and the students shared their opinions about the issues.
2. For homework they had to choose one article to read from the Guardian’s coverage of the election and consider:
   • What is the author’s point of view? Why?
   • What evidence/information does the author use to support this point of view?
   • What more do you learn about the candidates?
   • What is essential vocabulary for understanding the article?
   • What is other vocabulary related to politics/elections?\

In the second class, the students compared their articles in small groups, shared vocabulary, etc. and then ranked the issues in order of importance, then discussed who they would vote for given the chance. I visited all the groups to monitor and answer questions but we didn’t have time for whole-class discussion.

The feedback was simpler — we were out of time, so it had to be quick. But I’ll summarize a few relevant comments:

What I liked about the class:

Three students were happy to talk about the election because it was an “actual topic”, i.e. current/relevant and about “what’s happening these days”. Another liked learning something about the French election. Still another said they liked talking about the “French election and economy problems”.

What I didn’t like

There were few negative comments. One stated that the political vocabulary was difficult. Only one student said flat-out “I don’t like this topic”.

Summary

One of the challenges of the topic at this level was the vocabulary level related to using authentic materials — particularly as most had chosen opinion pieces from the Guardian’s Comment is Free section, where the challenge is even higher. I saw from their printed articles that they had done a lot of language work. But the discussion demonstrated that they could use a lot of the language in the context of their discussion.

Interestingly, the one repeated comment I did get in the “what I would change” section was requests for more Use of English, more Exam writing, more other exam-related things. This is an B2/FCE prep-class, and we use have a coursebook (which I mostly use to give them exam-task homework). This late in the course, deviation from exam prep may have seemed an unnecessary diversion to some. The takeaway for me is that if I’m going to do something like this at this point I should link it to some exam-like task. It’s something I do with the Advanced group, but didn’t think to do here because they have so many other explicit exam tasks to practice on.

Teens Upper-Intermediate/Advanced

We spent one class period on the topic, with no out-of-class work. There were only 2 girls in class, and they started with almost no knowledge of the actual candidates (they didn’t realize that one was a woman). However, as we’ve used authentic materials, some of which they’ve chosen, throughout the year, and they themselves had in the past selected topics like the gender pay gap and gender inequality to discuss in class, I had little doubt they would be capable of and interested in learning about and discussing the topic.

After they made predictions about the candidates and the issues, they accessed the Guardian article on their phones and each researched a candidate and then shared their information and opinions.

They’re quick to pick up on and use new vocabulary and they picked up on the use of “patriotic” in reference to both candidates in the brief video. This led to a lengthy discussion on patriotism vs. nationalism, with the students writing and comparing their own definitions of each, and questioning about who “owned” each — the right or the left.

 

Conclusion

 

As I’ve argued previously, I think it is important, as Linda Ruas said, to let the world into the classroom. Talking about issues like these gives students the opportunity to learn and practice the kind of vocabulary that fills the front pages of newspapers but which they never have access to in the EFL classroom. It also gives them the chance to practice exchanging views on topics that are immensely relevant to their lives, even if not usually viewed as such by the ELT publishing houses.

I didn’t have any (as JJ Wilson would call it) “proselytizing” goal with these topics — I wasn’t interested in proving to these students which candidate was better. So much so, in fact, that perhaps we erred too much on the side of caution — there were no real arguments about which candidate had the superior worldview, even though maybe part of me did want to challenge, more than we did, some voices in favor of who I viewed as the much worse choice between the two candidates (What would Steve Brown do? I found myself wondering a few times). Of course it might have been easier because we were talking about the French election and not that of Italy. But that’s also due to the students. They were cautious when they needed to be, and didn’t seek to offend.

But I think what really made this work was that the students (in most cases) had to opportunity to get informed before class so that they could discuss and use the relevant language that they’d discovered. They also had enough questions and tasks to keep the conversation and sharing fairly self-sustaining.

With the right tasks and the right approach, it becomes a simple choice: do I talk about hobbies or do I talk about politics? They’re both topics described in language that can be examined, practiced, corrected and tested. They’re both made of language, and you can choose what to do with it. No less than hobbies or any other run-of-the-mill topic, the French election can provide the material for language study and development.

Now, did I change anybody’s mind about the election? The answer, based on one class’s feedback, was a resounding No. But that was never the point.

What I hope I might have changed some minds about, for you and my students, is that topics like this — or whichever ones you or your students choose — do have a place in the ELT classroom.

How-to presentations for EFL classes. A lesson plan (part 3).

This is part 3 of 3 on How-to presentations, an activity cycle that runs for 2½ homework-classwork sessions:

1. Homework: listening activity with model text
2. Class: model text plus presentation scaffolding
3. Homework: write and practice presentation
4. Class: deliver presentation
5. Homework: reflection on presentation

In part 1 I described step 1 above, in part 2 I detailed steps 3 & 4 (in other words, everything leading up to the presentation day itself). Now I’ll describe parts 4 & 5 of the activity cycle.

 

4. Class: deliver presentation

It’s the big day. The students are nervous. Depending on the time available, I try to give students the first 15 minutes to warm up. 5 minutes to mumble-read their presentations individually, then 10 minutes to practice with a partner.

Even though the presentations are short and the topics varied, the key to keeping a classroom of people really engaged and focused for two hours is to give them tasks before, during and after each presentation.

I use a presentation cycle of:

1. Presenter question to the audience/pair discussion
2. Presentation (self-recorded)
3. Evaluations
4. Pair reflection/discussion

Ask each presenter to think of a question to ask the audience, to get them thinking and talking (in pairs) about the topic. With how-to presentations, it’s usually just a brief variation on the presentation topic, e.g. How do you give a good presentation in English? or How would you give a presentation? or What makes a good presentation? Let students discuss in pairs for a couple of minutes.

The presenter gives their talk, recording it on the smartphone voice recorder (if they don’t have one, I offer mine).

While listening to the presentations I always ask students to evaluate each other’s performance, which they mark on little slips of paper. Judged on a scale of 1-4 (1 = weak, 4 = great) the three (non-technical) criteria are:

1. Fluency (little stammering, hesitation or pausing)
2. Clarity (is the how-to procedure clear and easy to understand)
3. Presence (stance, posture, eye contact, body language, facial expressions)

Students should hang on to their evaluations until the end.

I evaluate each presentation as well, and add lots of comments. Correction is usually limited to pronunciation issues that I couldn’t have caught from the written text. I focus my praise on performance issues (fluency and presence) and particular instances where they’ve succeeded in improving on the written draft (by incorporating my suggestions or improving it in other ways).

Give students 10 seconds to complete their marks, and then give the student pairs a couple of minutes to discuss what they learned and whether it matched their expectations. I also encourage the presenter to walk around and listen to what the class is saying ― and offer clarification or answer questions.

When all the students have presented, students should go around and distribute their evaluations to the presenters.

Then there are a couple of options to wrap up the day:

1. Take a (secret) vote for the best presentation (or two or three) and award a prize. Discuss reasons for their choices.
2. Put students into groups and have them write quiz questions for another group to see what was remembered.

 

5. Homework: reflection on presentation

As homework I send students an email asking them to reflect on their presentation (see below for the full email). In summary, they should:

• Look at the evaluations ― do they think they’re fair
• Listen to their recording again ― listen for my pronunciation notes, and check the pronunciation of words in question
• Decide what they liked, and what they need to improve

All good things are worth repeating. And the next time you do a presentation activity, ask students to pull out the email they send you to give them a goal for what to work on.

Conclusion

As I mentioned way back at the beginning of part 1, nobody likes having to do a presenation, but everybody loves having done one. And EFL students are certainly no exception: in mid-term and end-of-class surveys, students routinely tell me that presentations are one of the most challenging, rewarding and enjoyable things they do in class.

And you don’t have to stop with one. Giving students the opportunity to do 2 or 3 throughout the course will mean you can really work to improve different performance aspects as well, like stage presence or intonation.

By providing students with good models, scaffolding and an encouraging (and safe) environment, you’ll find students are willing and eager to share their passions, with the best English eloquence they can muster, on the classroom stage.

 

Student post-presentation self-reflection letter

Hi!

Good work today! You successfully got through your first English presentation (for this class)!

I know you may not like the sound of your voice (most people don’t), but recording yourself is one of the best ways to begin to work on improving your speaking. You can actually hear the things you need to improve! This homework will give you a chance to reflect on what you did well and what you can improve.

Look at your classmates’ evaluations of your presentations, as well as my own, and then listen to your presentation. A number of my comments had to do with pronunciation—sometimes I put (p) for pronunciation. If you want to hear the word said with US or UK pronunciation, look up the word in e.g. the Cambridge Learner’s Dictionary.

Next, I’d like you to write me an email. In the email, I’d like you to tell me 2-3 things you liked/were happy with about your presentation (even if you’re naturally a pessimist, you must find something positive to say about yourself! For example, you could say “I remembered what I wanted to say” or “It was easier than I’d feared” or “I managed to say some difficult words like X, Y and Z, which I’d looked up in a dictionary”. Also, tell me 3 things you need to work on to improve your English for presentations. Please be specific: DON’T say “I need to do better presentations” (too general), but DO say, “I need to memorize my transitions” (more specific).

To repeat:

For homework, listen to your presentation and read my comments. Then write me an email. Say:

•  2-3 things you liked about your presentation
• 3 things you need to work on to improve

I look forward to hearing your self-assessment! Thanks!

How-to presentations for EFL classes. A lesson plan (part 2)

How-to presentations is an activity cycle that runs for 2½ homework-classwork sessions:

1. Homework: listening activity with model text
2. Class: model text plus presentation scaffolding
3. Homework: write and practice presentation
4. Class: deliver presentation
5. Homework: reflection on presentation

In part 1 of this article I described the first homework assignment (1), which gets students thinking about presentations.

In part 2, I’m going to describe how I model a presentation and then help students begin to put together theirs (steps 2-3).

 

2. Class: model text plus presentation scaffolding

You can spend the beginning of the next class discussing the listening text ― as should be obvious, it’s a fairly fertile topic for discussion.

Then you drop the bomb: you expect the students to give their own presentations, next class. But to be fair, you’re not going to ask them to do anything you wouldn’t do yourself. You’re going to give your own How-to presentation.

Here’s the plan:

1. First, ask them what they remember from the listening about the elements of a good presentation. Then, have them pull out the activity and check.
2. Give the presentation (see below for the text). While listening, students tick off the “best practices” you use.
3. Give students a gapfill activity with the “transcript” of the talk and check (see below).

 

Explanation:

The presentation  will model what you expect them to do in the talks, including getting the audience thinking about the topic (or activating schemata, if you will) before the presentation (see part 3 of this series).

I record myself with the built-in voice recorder app on my phone. I strongly encourage you to record yourself giving the presentation, because:

1. Many students are terrified of speaking in public, but many students are equally (if not more) put off by the idea of recording and then listening to their own voice. I insist my students record themselves; it’s only fair I do as well.
2. It allows them to see (when comparing it with the pre-typed presentation text) that what you produce in a live presentation often goes off-script. In other words, what matters is the presentation you deliver, not whether you say it word-for-word as written.

At the end of your presentation, ask students to write down what they remember, then check in pairs. Then give them the presentation text gapfill and skim it to check. Finally, ask students to do the gapfill.

Finally, check ― by playing back the recording of your presentation (I use either a mini bluetooth speaker or a USB cable to plug into the TV speakers, but your smartphone might have speakers good enough to project, depending on the size of the classroom).

How smoothly the checking process goes depends on how well you’ve memorized the text. Sometimes I written the key gap-fill vocabulary on a piece of paper as cues. But even if you forgot to say some of the keywords in the presentation you’ve delivered, you can still check together.

Just remember to highlight the difference mentioned above between what you intend to say and what you actually say. As long as you deliver the presentation well, it’s usually only the speaker who knows whether or not the text was delivered faithfully.

Students build their presentations:

With two models provided (especially your second meta-presentation on the thing itself), students should have ample information for how to construct a how-to presentation. I usually ask them to come up with a topic and 5-paragraph plan, if not the full text, in class. In addition to organization issues, my interventions are often to help them construct an introduction – painting the picture.

 

3. Homework: write and practice presentation

The homework consists in writing up the presentation and emailing it to me for comments and correction. Make sure to give them a tight deadline ― they’ve got to have time between when you email them the corrections/feedback and the next class in order to practice and memorize the presentation.

 

In the third and final part of this article, I’ll describe steps 4 & 5, or what to do on the day of the presention – self-recording, self-assessment and post-presentation reflection.

 

Presentation Model:

How to give a good presentation in English

This is the written text of my presentation. Complete the gaps with the words from below. The first one has been done for you.

eyes          delivery                    engaging                   attention             guarantee             repeating             connect              understand          sequencing              improve                  memorable

Today I’m going to talk about how to give a good presentation in English. First, in my talk, I’m going to give you three tips about how you can 1) improve your presentations to make sure you give a presentation that’s interesting, 2)____________ and memorable. So here are my three tips.

The first is that organization is very important. In English we like to have very clear organization to presentations. In the introduction we talk about what we’re going to talk about, and then in the body we talk about the topic itself, and in the conclusion we summarize what we talked about. So it’s a way of both 3)___________ the information and making it clear and easy to understand.

The second tip is to use what’s called “signposting language”. Signposting language is language that helps the audience 4)___________ what’s going to come next, when to pay attention, and to help understand things that they’ve already heard. Some examples of signposting language are introducing something by saying, “Ok, now I’m going to talk about (this).” Other signposting language examples are 5)“_____________ language” to say “First I’m gonna do (this), then I’m gonna do (this), lastly I’m going to do (this)”. Or say, “Now I’ll talk about (this)”. It’s language that’s used to help focus the audience’s 6)___________ on different things.

The last thing that’s important when you’re giving a presentation is the actual physical, 7) ____________ of the presentation. And there’s two things to that. I’d say the first is about speaking. Do you speak in a way that’s clear, slow, easy to understand? And the second is about your body language. Do you look people in the 8)____________? Do you have an open body posture or are you scared and hiding? These things will help your audience—help you 9)__________ with your audience and to make your message clearer.

So, those are my three tips. Remember, organization is important. Use signposting language. And finally, make sure you can deliver your presentation in a way that’s engaging and interesting. If you follow these tips, I 10)___________ that you’ll give better, clearer, more 11)____________ presentations.

How-to presentations for EFL classes. A lesson plan (part 1)

If there’s one thing that can be said about presentations it’s that few people like doing one, but everybody loves having done one. In the EFL classrrom they’re highly motivating moments for students to work on organizing their discourse, polish their language, face their fears and, with the help of self-recording, listen to and reflect on their own performance and opportunities for improvement.

All reasons why I regularly ask my students to do presentations in my class. While there are many kinds, How-to presentations are among the most structured and straightforward to plan and perform. In this post I’ll describe how to set up how-to presentations in your class.

This activity cycle runs for 2½ homework-classwork sessions:

1. Homework: listening activity with model text
2. Class: model text plus presentation scaffolding
3. Homework: write and practice presentation
4. Class: deliver presentation
5. Homework: reflection on presentation

1. Homework: listening activity with model text (pre-task)

Before I even announce that we’re going to do presentations, I usually get students primed with an at-home listening activity based on a YouTube video called ― wait for it ― How to get a beautiful girl to approach you, from the Tripp Advice channel (and, in case it needs to be said, linking does not equal endorsement).

I first stumbled across the video when it came up in a YouTube search for How-to videos. I’ve used it (and continue to do so) because the presenter has made it:

• Short
• Clearly delivered ― intermediate students should have little problem with it
• Perfectly structured
• Freely available

It additionally generates classroom discussion on gender roles, stereotypes, societal rules/expectations, modern love, and whether women do really notice a guy’s shoes. Frankly, it ain’t the sort of thing you’ll get in your average coursebook. In short, it’s a model text.

Below is a shortened version of the activity ― the full activity (which I share with my students via Google Docs) includes some pre-teaching of key vocabulary and some work on verb patterns with get (this authentic text uses get a full 10 times in 3:38 seconds ― the kind of repetition course book writers labor to stuff into theirs. But I digress.) What follows, however, are the parts particularly relevant to presentations.

In part 2 of this article, I’ll talk about how I model a How-to presentation and help students construct theirs.

How to get a beautiful girl to approach you

Guys, why do all the hard work? With this video you can learn how to get girls to approach you. Girls, what do you think? Is this advice brilliant or total bull?

Before listening: How would you approach a person you find attractive? How could you make them approach you instead?

1. Listen once and take notes:

• Tip 1:
• Tip 2:
• Tip 3:
• What else he’s offering

2. Listen again for more details. Do you agree with his advice?

3. Do the language focus exercises

Language Focus:

Giving a presentation/sales pitch

Whatever you think of Mr. Tripp and his advice, it is a well-constructed presentation (and a sales pitch ― he wants you to check out his other products). Look at the excerpts from the presentations below and connect them with the function of each. The first has been done for you. (Answers are below)

1. Wouldn’t it be great to have a girl finally approach you for once instead of doing all the work and having to muster up the courage to go over and talk to her?
2. Well, today I’m going show you three steps to get a girl to come over and approach you whether you’re at a bar or out during the day.
3. And wait for step number 3, where I’ll tell you the most effective way to get her to come over to you.
4. Let me tell you a quick story
5. Step number 1: Dress up sexy
6. The more open that you look, the more open that she’ll feel to start a conversation with you.
7. So remember: put on some stylish clothing, start with your shoes. Open up your body language and force eye contact with the girl. Then wave her over and give her your killer smile.
8. So go ahead, click the link, get that series, get it immediately.
9. Thank you so much for watching and I’ll see you on the next video.

• A. tell a story to connect with audience and create interest 4
• B. give a call to action (in other words, tell the audience what to do next)
• C. ask a rhetorical question to get audience thinking
• D. give a brief summary before going into detail so you know what to expect
• E. use sequencing language (first, second, etc.) to give a clear structure to the talk
• F. emphasize positive the results of following his advice
• G. provide a “hook” to keep audience listening until the end
• H. thank the audience
• I. summarize the info that’s just been presented

Answers: 1C, 2D, 3G, 4A, 5E, 6F, 7I, 8B, 9H