Listening

This is a very useful resource for listening practice and for learning new or consolidating already known vocabulary. You can download the episodes as podcasts. Each one lasts only 8 minutes.  It's time well spent, especially if you have difficulty with listening to authentic texts. 

We used this OUP Youtube presentation as listening practice and as a springboard for writing a paragraph developing one of Goldin's 10 recommendations or theses concerning development. 

We used this clip from the comedy quiz show (a play on 'QI') hosted by Stephen Fry as a springboard for writing a paragraph problematizing the topic of the discovery of Australia. The question asked and answered (by Fry) in this clip is "Who discovered Australia"? 

We used this short video (1'23") about Adam Smith as practice at listening for gist (anticipating content) and to focus on some authentic use of the language of causality (e.g. to popularize, to minimize, to make money by selling products people want, Smith's book The Wealth of Nations helped drive the move from land-based wealth to wealth created by assembly line methods, his work led to other revelations ..)

We used this short (3'22"), more argumentative video assessing the value of Marx's work as further practice at listening for gist (anticipating content and viewpoint) and to identify further authentic examples of the language of causality which it uses, e.g. his writings have generated fierce debate; the realisation of a stateless society; the utopian ideal of a fair and equal society failed to materialise; communism tyrannised its subjects; Marx predicted that capitalism would lead to globalisation, however, he underestimated the capacity of capitalism to make everybody richer by making products much cheaper; welfare states that redistributed wealth through taxation 

We used this short video profile on 13/11/2018 as input - particularly for the many students who were not present for the longer listening activity on Soros on Monday 12/11/2018 - for the writing of two paragraphs describing attitudes towards the billionaire philanthropist: one dedicated to the (broadly) 'pro' camp and one dedicated to the (broadly) 'against' camp. You will note that most of the comments in response to this video are negative about Soros, and about the BBC for creating this account of him (the BBC is said to be biased and that Soros must have paid the BBC to produce it). Students took notes whilst listening on the different positions presented, to be used for their two paragraphs. See the 'language' section for the language of attributing points of view. The paragraphs collected from class on Thursday 15th will be posted (anonymously) on moodle in the writing section for everybody to see, with corrections and comments.