Telling your friends

How many times have you had a conversation that began something like "Did you hear about that strange…."? It may have come from a story heard on the radio or seen on television. Or, perhaps even more often, it may have come from a newspaper story. What we read in the newspaper often becomes a topic of conversation. This week we are going to use some interesting and unusual newspaper stories from the Bangkok Post to carry on our own conversations - in English!

If you look through a typical issue of the Bangkok Post, you will see that many of the stories are very short - some as short as one paragraph. If you look more closely, you will see that some of them are not really "news". They are not "important" events that we need to now about. Instead, they are in the newspaper because they are unusual or amusing. These are the stories that often become the topic of a conversation. Here is an example:

Death notice doesn't work An Australian machinist who wanted time off work to look for another job placed a notice in a newspaper announcing his father's death. But the bizarre quest for "bereavement leave" backfired when the father of 26-year-old Jason Miller complained to police that news of his death was premature, the Sydney Daily Telegraph said yesterday. The newspaper said Miller wanted time off from his job at Newcastle Lampworks. So he paid A$16.80 (410 baht) for a death notice in the Newcastle Herald saying his father, Paul, would be a "much missed, father, grandfather and friend". The next day his father met a friend who had seen the notice, and the ruse was discovered. Miller faces up to three months' jail for the offence. "I am alive and well but this thing has left me shaken," Miller's father was quoted as saying.

bizarre	strange
bereavement leave	time off from a job because of a death in the family
backfired	had the opposite effect of the one intended
premature	happening before the normal time (in this case, the man had not died so there shouldn't have been news about his death)

I think you will agree that this is an usual story. But how would you tell it to someone else? You wouldn't use exactly the same words as the newspaper story because that is written English. And you probably wouldn't use the same style either. The newspaper story puts the main idea right at the top. You would probably want to tell the story a little more slowly-something like this:

"I read a strange story yesterday. It happened in Australia. A 26-year-old man named Jason Miller wanted some time away from work, but since he didn't have a good excuse - he wasn't sick or anything like that - he decided to create one.

He paid a local newspaper about 400 baht for an announcement in the newspaper that his father, Paul, had died. The announcement was very sad, saying that Paul Miller would be a "much missed, father, grandfather and friend".

Jason was sure this would get him time off from work because in Australia they give workers what is known as "bereavement leave" when there is a death in the family.

It sounds bizarre - very strange - doesn't it, but Jason must have thought he was clever. But he wasn't. The day after the announcement appeared in the newspaper, a friend of his father's saw it and told him about it. The father immediately called the police.

It didn't take them long to find out Jason was responsible for the announcement. Now he is in big trouble. In fact, he may go to jail for three months for his ruse - his dishonest plan.

Notice that my story is in spoken English although it is not exactly the way I would tell it to my friends. I made it a little easier to understand and I also tried to use a few of the new words from the story. Notice that I explained them, too, so that my listeners would understand.

This week's stories

I have chosen four short stories for you to read. Your teacher may have you read them all, but it is more likely that you will be assigned to read one story and then tell that story to other members of your class who have read other stories. They, in turn, will tell you their stories. Your story will have vocabulary explanations and suggestions for things to include when you tell it.

STORY 1 Prince William 'goes public' about his life and hopes Britain's Prince William has marked his 16th birthday by giving a rare insight into his personal life and revealing he hates being a pin-up royal. Prince William, eldest son of Princess Diana and Prince Charles, revealed how his "world seemed to fall apart" after the "momentous" death of his 36-year-old mother last August. Prince William, 16 today and second in line to the British throne, responded to a media hungry for news about him by answering a series of written questions about his life at home and at the elite Eton boarding school. The tall, blond prince, who bears a strong resemblance to his mother, said he was "uncomfortable" with the adulation of "screaming girls". Prince William revealed he loved techno music - but declined to name his favourite pop group. He likes swimming, reading and action films. He also has a pet labrador and loves horses. He said he planned to spend his birthday with friends, having finished exams at Eton, and would speak to his family on the telephone. He said he would study geography, biology and history or art in his final two years at Eton and hopes to go to university but was undecided on the degree course. This story should be easy to tell because much of it is already written in "indirect speech" ("Prince William said...", etc.). You might begin by explaining who Prince William is and why he was in the news (his 16th birthday). Then tell your friends what he said about himself. Here is some vocabulary from the story that you might not know.

pin-up	referring to someone whose picture is often cut out of magazines, etc., and put on the wall
media	newspapers, magazines, radio and television
elite	open to only the richest and most powerful
boarding school	a school where students live as well as study

STORY 2 Couple face deportation for slapping Two Chinese immigrants could be deported from the United States because they slapped their 8-year-old daughter to punish her for forging their signature on a teacher's note and lying when she lost a ring she got for her birthday. When Hou-Lin Li and Luying Deng's daughter admitted her transgressions last July, they slapped her once on the face and several times on her arms and legs. They took her to a park where she thought she lost the ring and a police officer noticed a slap mark on her tear-stained face. The parents were arrested and the girl briefly placed in a state shelter for abused children. On Monday, Ms Deng and Mr Li are schedule to go on trial in Cook County Domestic Relations Court on charges of domestic battery. If convicted, they face deportation. The couple offered to plead guilty to a charge of simple battery, which would not trigger deportation proceedings, but the state's attorney's office has refused to plea bargain. Ms Deng, who came to the US eight years ago, is a school teacher, while Mr Li, a five-year US resident, had almost completed an international law programme at an Illinois university. You will probably find this story strange and that should make it fun for you to tell your friends about. As you read it, do you think the parents in the story did anything wrong? Did they really abuse their child? Should the police have become involved? After you tell the story, you can give your own opinion and find out the opinions of the others in the group too.

deported	forced to leave a country
forging	wrongly copying
transgressions	sins; improper behaviour
domestic battery	seriously hurting a family member
convicted	proven to be guilty
trigger	to cause
plea bargain	allowing someone to admit guilt to a lesser crime so that a trial becomes unnecessary

STORY 3 Fume-eating plants help clear the air *City experts modify Japanese system* Poona Antaseeda A roadside system in which flower beds purify vehicle exhaust emissions is being developed by the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration. The biological earth-air purifier draws fumes into a chamber below the flower bed where soil and roots extract hazardous gas. It was installed in front of the Marble Temple near the royal palace on June 5. Kasemsan Suwannarat, deputy director of the BMA's Office of Policy and Planning, who designed the equipment, said it was based on a biological principle. Polluted air drawn into the underground chamber passes through the soil and the roots of trees. The result would be less polluted air, leaving much of the gas in the soil as fertiliser. The 170,000-baht system is 4.5 metres long, 2.5 metres wide and one meter deep. Wonchat Subhachaturas, deputy city clerk, said tests of the output found that much of the gas had been absorbed. Carbon monoxide and sulphur dioxide were reduced by about 77%, carbon dioxide by 50% and nitrogen dioxide by 33%. More tests would be carried out to ensure the system's effectiveness and viability, said Mr Wonchat. Larger systems would be needed when they are put into actual operation. The invention is based on a system proposed by a Japanese company. Because the investment cost of the Japanese system was too high, the city decided to develop one itself. With this story you will be able to explain a simple, but hopefully effective, anti-pollution invention. I suggest you make use of the diagram both to understand the story and to explain the invention to your friends. Be sure to explain the purpose of the invention, how it works, how much it costs and where the idea first came from.

exhaust emissions	waste gases
fumes	unpleasant gases or smoke
extract	to take out from
hazardous	dangerous
viability	practicality, i.e., whether or not it will work

FOLLOW-UP

Teacher’s Note

Introducing "information gap" activities This week's lesson is designed to help you to take better advantage of your Bangkok Post. Since our newspaper has at least 150 stories each day, it seems silly to continually design lessons in which the students all focus on a single story. Students appreciate a bit of variety and that is what this lesson will give them.

But there is a also a second benefit from the activity I have designed. It will make one of our favourite methods of organising our classes - dividing the students into groups - much more efficient and meaningful.

Group work - especially in a large class - has one very well-known weakness. Once an assignment is given to the typical five-person group, two people work energetically, two others daydream as the fifth member sleeps. Since the group must generally turn in a single assignment, there is not much incentive for everyone to participate.

This problem is easy to avoid with this week's activity because it is based on a phenomenon known as "information gap". Information gap occurs when each member of a group is responsible for different information - in this case, a different story. Since each member has information unknown to the others, he or she must participate for the activity to succeed.

Information gap lessons usually begin with students in groups. In this case there would be a minimum of four groups since there are four stories to cover. In a large class, however, you would probably want to have eight or even twelve groups to keep the group size down. In the course of the lesson, new groups will be created. As you will see, that is how the information gap comes about.

Each group will be responsible for one story. Their job will be to understand the story well enough so that they can tell it their friends from other groups in English. As I have pointed out in the student's introduction, the students should definitely not simply memorise their story and then tell it word-for-word as it appears on this page. They should put the story into their own words and try to make it sound as interesting as possible. I have illustrated this with an example story and you should go over it thoroughly with your class.

It is important that each group member learns to tell the story because the next step is to regroup your students (see diagram below) into new groups. Each member of the new group should have read a different story. The students then proceed to tell their own stories to the other group members.

[Graphic depicting information gap exchange]

If you want to, you can do an additional follow-up exercise by randomly asking students about the stories they heard from their friends. This will require each student to listen closely as their friends relate their stories. You should announce this in advance, however.

NEXT WEEK: Finishing the story an introduction to the body.

•This lesson was prepared by Acharn Terry Fredrickson, BA Stanford, MA (TESL) University of Minnesota, Manager of the Educational Services Department at the Bangkok Post and general editor of this programme.

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