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Wednesday, 2 September 2020

No News Is Good News



I Lead-in.
1)    What sources (newspapers, TV, Internet) do you use to get news?
2)     Do you find it’s important to know the news? Do you trust the news you find online?
3)     Do you know English proverb ‘no news is good news’? Do you agree that it’s good to have no news?

II Vocabulary focus. Match the words to their definitions. Use three words in your sentences.
    1.     
research
     A.    
correct, without mistakes
    2.     
social media
     B.    
to keep away from something
    3.     
to decline
     C.    
treating all equally
    4.     
accurate
     D.    
to become smaller in importance and strength
    5.     
trustworthy
     E.     
examination of opinions
    6.     
impartial
     F.     
websites and programs that allow people to share information, e.g. Facebook
     7.     
to avoid
     G.    
a detailed study of a subject
     8.     
survey
     H.    
deserving trust


III Vocabulary focus. Follow the link below. Study the words and word combinations using flashcards, check your understanding, practise their  spelling. Check your knowledge in the test. Play matching vocabulary game (match words to their definitions to make cards disappear)  and save the planet from asteroids by typing in correct words.


IV  Look through the article. Five sentence parts have been removed. Read the article and choose from the sentence (A-G) the one which fits each gap (1-5). There are two sentence parts that you do not need to use.


A.   high-quality free content on social networks.
B.   mostly from television, decreasingly so from newspapers and more and more from social media.
C.   One reason for the decline is the way social-media sites work.
D.  the use of social media as a source of news about coronavirus fell from 49% in week one to 29% in week 20.
E.   While the average person aged 65 and over watches 33 minutes of TV news a day, this falls to just two minutes
F.   are also likelier to avoid news.
G.  research also suggests that people are increasingly willing to wade into online arguments about news.

Every year Ofcom, the media regulator, conducts research into where
Britons get their news. And every year, the answer is roughly the same: 1) ________. But this year’s “news consumption report” contained a surprise: after years of growth, the number of British adults getting their news from social media declined from 49% to 45%. People’s opinion of social media deteriorated too. Brits consider it the least accurate, trustworthy, impartial or high quality of all sources.
2) ________. Facebook, the most popular, has been moving news down in users’ feeds. Publishers reacted to that by deprioritising Facebook as an outlet to promote their work. Moreover many websites have restricted access to news, reducing the supply of 3) ________.
But a more important cause may be that Britons are tiring of the news and actively choosing to avoid it. Research by the Reuters Institute for the Study of
Journalism (RISJ) in Oxford found that last year some 35% of Britons said they often or sometimes avoided the news, up from 24% in 2017. The big jump is probably because of polarisation around Brexit. Benjamin Toff of the University of Minnesota has found that “people who relied on social media as their main source of news were significantly more likely to say they were actively avoiding news”. In Britain women 4) ________. In research on Britain and Spain, Mr Toff found that one of the main reasons for news avoidance was that “the content was too focused on politics”.
The pandemic has changed the reason, but not the trend. Ofcom’s surveys were conducted mostly before Britain entered lockdown. Subsequent research by the regulator found that 5) ________. The number of people saying they were trying to avoid news about coronavirus rose from 22% in the first week of lockdown to 35% in the tenth week, at the end of May, before declining to 29% in early August, probably because the virus had  topped dominating the headlines. Research by the RISJ found a similar pattern. The main reason for avoiding news? “It has a bad effect on my mood”.


V Comprehension check. Mark the sentences as True (T) or False (F). Correct the false statements.
1.    This year’s “news consumption report” showed that more British adults got their news from social media.  
2.    Brits consider social media the least accurate, trustworthy, impartial or high quality of all sources.  
3.    One reason for the decline is the type of pictures social-media sites use.  
4.    Facebook has been moving news down in users’ feeds.   
5.    Now publishers use Facebook as the most important outlet to promote their work.  
6.    Many websites have restricted access to free news.  
7.    Britons are tiring of the social media and actively choosing to use TV.  
8.    Many Britons avoided the news because of polarisation around Brexit.  
9.    In Britain men are also likelier to avoid news.  
10.One of the main reasons for news avoidance was that focus on politics.  
11.The use of social media as a source of news about British politics fell from 49% in week one to 29% in week 20 of lockdown.   
12.The main reason for avoiding news was its bad effect on people’s mood.  

  
VI OVER TO YOU. Discuss the questions with other students:
A.   Find the information about the media (TV, radio, newspapers, Internet) that people in your country use to get news. What sources of news are popular in your country?
B.   What sources of news don’t people in your country trust and why?
C.    What are the attitudes to news in your country? Do people think that news can have bad effect on their mood?
D.   What news can be interesting for people (news about politics, coronavirus, and economy)?
E.    What are the main stories in the news in your country now?
F.    In what situation would you choose to avoid the news?
G.   Where can people find accurate, trustworthy, impartial or high quality news.

Saturday, 22 August 2020

Why we say “OK”


Why we say “OK”

I Lead-in.
1)    What word is the most popular one in the English language?
2)    What English words do people understand even if they don’t know the language well?

II Vocabulary focus. Match the words to their definitions. Use three words in your sentences.
     1.     
recognizable
      A.    
in a planned way
     2.     
fad
      B.    
to judge the importance of something
     3.     
intentionally
      C.    
to remain in a place
      4.     
abbreviation
      D.    
statement that you received something 
      5.     
to confirm
      E.     
a statement of agreement
      6.     
acknowledgement
      F.     
easy to identify
      7.     
manual
      G.    
to say something is correct
      8.     
to stick around
      H.    
an activity popular for a short period of time
      9.     
memorable
      I.       
deeply fixed
      10. 
embedded
      J.      
easily remembered
      11. 
affirmative
      K.    
a shortened form of a word or a phrase
      12. 
to evaluate
      L.     
a book giving instructions


III Watch the video and fill in the gaps with the words from the list. There are some words you don’t need to use.


papers; word; abbreviations; planet; messengers; messages; order; plans;
mean

There’s a two-letter 1) _____ that we hear everywhere. OK might be the most recognizable word on the 2) _____. It’s essential to how we communicate with each other, and even with our technology. You probably use it every day – even if you don’t notice it. But, what does OK actually 3) _____? And where did it come from?
OK actually traces back to an 1830s fad of intentionally misspelling 4) _____. Young “intellectual” types in Boston delighted those “in the know” with butchered coded 5) _____ such as KC, or “knuff ced” (enough said), KY  “know yuse” (no use), and OW  “oll wright” (all right) But thanks to a couple of lucky breaks, one abbreviation rose above the rest: OK, or “oll correct" (all correct). In the early 1800s, “all correct” was a common phrase used to confirm that everything was in 6) _____. Its abbreviated cousin started going mainstream on March 23, 1839, when OK was first published in the Boston Morning Post. Soon other 7) _____ picked up on the joke and spread it around the country, until OK was something everyone knew about, not just a few Boston insiders.


IV Watch the video and choose the correct option to complete the sentences.



1.    ______ Van Buren adopted OK as a nickname during his 1840 reelection campaign.
a) Singer         b) President     c) Journalist
2.    Van Buren’s _______ formed OK Clubs all over the country.
a) supporters    b) family         c)  sons       
3.    The campaign with OK was shown in the _____.
a)   radio       b)   press              c)  TV
4.    A clever nickname ______ Van Buren’s presidency. 
a)   didn’t save       b)     helped a lot     c)  was not connected to     
5.    OK became a part of functional use thanks to one invention: the ______.
a) telegraph    b) telephone         c)  television       
6.    The telegraph debuted in 1844, just five years ___ OK.
a) before    b) after c)  simultaneously       
7.    It transmitted short messages in the form of electric pulses, with combinations of _____ and dashes representing letters of the alphabet.
a) push        b) stop         c)  dots
8.    The two letters in OK were _____ to tap.
a) impossible      b) difficult         c)  easy
9.    OK became a standard acknowledgement of a transmission received, especially by operators on the expanding US ____. 
a) railroad        b) airlines         c)  army       


V Watch the video and choose the correct option to complete the sentences.



But there’s another big reason the two letters stuck around, and it’s not just because they’re easy to communicative/communication/communicate. It has to do with how OK looks. Or more specifically, how the letter K looks and sounds/soundly/profound. It’s really uncommon to start a word with the letter K in English — it’s ranked around 22nd in the alphabetic/alphabet/bet it. That rarity spurred a “Kraze for K” at the turn of the century in advertising and print, where companies replaced hard Cs with Ks in order to Katch your eye/lie/rye. The idea was that modifying a word — like Klearflax Linen Rugs or this Kook-Rite Stove, for example — would draw more attentive/attention/attentively to it.
And that’s still a visual strategy: We see K represented in modern corporate logos, like Krispy-Kreme and Kool-Aid. It’s the K that makes it so memorabilia/memorable/remembers.
By the 1890s, OK’s Bostonian origins were already mostly forgotten, and newsagent/newspapers/snipers began to debate its history — often perpetuating myths in the process that some people still believe. Like the claim that it comes from the Choctaw word ‘okeh,’ which means ‘so it is.’ OK’s beginnings had become obscure but it didn’t really matter anymore — the word was engraving/embedded/debate in our language.
Today, we use it as the ultimate “neutral affirmations/affirmative/confirmed it” Allan Metcalf wrote the definitive history of OK, and he explains that the word “affirms without evaluating,” meaning it doesn’t convey any feel/feelings/feels — it just acknowledges and accepts information. If you “got home OK,” it just means you were unharmed. If your “food was OK,” then it was acceptable. And “OK” confirms a changeable/change/exchange of plans. It’s is sort of a reflex/reflected/flexing at this point — we don’t even keep track of how much we use it. Which might be why OK was arguably the first word spoken when humanity/humanitarian/humans landed on the Moon.


VI Watch all part of the video and mark the sentences as True (T) or False (F). Correct the false statements.
1.    OK is a three-letter word that we hear everywhere.  
2.    OK might be the most recognizable word on the planet.  
3.    OK actually traces back to a 1830s fad in New York.  
4.    OK means “oll confirmed" (all confirmed).  
5.    OK became popular in1999, when it was first published in the Boston Morning Post.  
6.    OK was a nickname for a US president.  
7.    This nickname didn’t save Van Buren’s presidency.  
8.    OK came to functional use thanks to the invention of the telephone.  
9.    The telegraph transmitted short messages using dots and dashes to represent letters of the alphabet.  
10.OK was easy to tap out and very unlikely to be confused with anything else.  
11.It is important how OK looks.   
12.Many words in English start with the letter K— it’s ranked around 22nd in the alphabet.  
13.Companies replaced Cs with Ks in order to attract attention.  
14.We see K represented in modern corporate logos, like Krispy-Kreme and Kool-Aid.  
15.There are myths that OK comes from the Choctaw word ‘okeh,’ which means ‘so it is.’  
16.OK affirms with evaluating, it conveys speaker’s feelings.  
17.OK was the first word spoken when humans landed on Mars. FALSE. OK was the first word spoken when humans landed on the Moon.



VII OVER TO YOU. Find information about at least 2 other English words that are used all over the world. Why are those words so popular? Share your findings with other students.