4. Interview
a. Use the questions below to interview three people in your class about their opinions and experiences.
What are the most frequent types of crime in your country/city?
How safe do you feel in your country/city?
What is the most dangerous city in your country?
Have you ever been the victim of a crime?
b. Report your findings to the class. Try to use the following verb patterns:
-
admit doing smth / admit + that-clause
complain to sb about smth / complain + that-clause
deny doing smth / deny + that-clause
explain to sb + that-clause
wonder where/what/why/how + clause
c. Write a short survey of your findings.
Listening
1. Pre-listening task BRAINSTORMING ABOUT THE TOPIC
When you brainstorm about a topic, you allow yourself to think about it freely and can generate unexpected ideas and reactions. A good way to brainstorm is to use a word map that indicates your ideas about different aspects of the topic. |
Work with a partner. Look at the word map below. Think about crime and
brainstorm different aspects of crime. You may, for example, focus on types of crime, causes and effects of crime, personal experiences with crime, punishments for crime, or any other aspects of crime that occur to you. Write notes about your thoughts on the word map. Add as many lines to the word map as you wish.
Share your ideas with another pair of classmates.
2. Listening Technical terms
Many fields of study have technical terms that you need to know in order to understand and discuss topics in that field. |
1. Read the technical terms for various types of crime and their definitions (given in parentheses) in the left column of the chart below. Then listen to a series of radio crime reports. As you listen, write the number of the report next to the type of crime that is being reported.
Type of crime |
Report number |
Arson (setting property on fire) |
|
Burglary (going into a building to steal something) |
|
Motor vehicle theft (stealing a car) |
|
Murder (killing someone, also called "homicide") |
|
Rape (forcing someone to have sexual relations) |
|
Shoplifting (stealing from a store) |
|
Weapons possession (having a weapon without a license) |
|
2. Compare your answers with a partner.
3. Speaking 1 Game Board
1. Look at the ‘game board’ below. It has questions about different aspects of crime and criminals. Circulate among your classmates, using the game board to ask questions (one question per classmate). If your classmate can give you a well-developed answer to a question – not just one sentence – write the name of the classmate in that box and make some brief notes about the answer. When you complete three boxes across and three down, stop the activity.
2. Work in small groups. Report back the answers you got from your classmates. Then choose the most interesting answer in your group and share it with the class.
Apart from using the verb patterns from Exercise 4 on the previous page, try to use the following:
-
demand to do smth
claim + that-clause
insist on sb doing smth
suggest doing smth
Find someone who … |
||
has a suggestion about how to reduce the level of crime in society. |
has an opinion about the causes of crime and can explain what makes someone break the law.
|
knows the name and story of a famous criminal in history. |
has read a crime novel or seen a crime movie and can tell you the story.
|
can offer an explanation of the high level of violent crime in the United States. |
can describe a really well-publicized crime – something that dominated the newspapers and TV and captured the public’s interest.
|
can comment on one of the following types of crime:
|
can describe an activity that is considered illegal but that the person believes should be legalized. |
has been the victim of a crime and is prepared to tell the story of what happened. |
/Adapted from Academic listening encounters: life in society. Student’s Book. Kim Sanabria/
Speaking 2 Interpreting graphs
A lot of information that you find on a topic is presented in graphic form, so it is important to practice reading and analyzing graphs and charts. Basing a report on the information provided by a graph is partly a matter of interpretation, but also requires correct use of the technical terms. |
The language of statistics
Two quotations:
'There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics.' (Mark Twain)
'He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts - for support rather than illumination.' (Andrew Lang)