Weds Dec 29

Intermediate +

THE ARTICLE

While death tolls rise alarmingly higher each hour, Colin Powell did his best yesterday to fight off accusations that aid donations from the American government are stingy. He said America “will do more” to help the tsunami victims, but didn’t say when. In an interview with ABC he trod carefully, “It will take us a while to make a careful assessment of what is needed ... This is indeed an international tragedy, and we are going to do everything we can.” What America has proved it can do well is move an army and supplies equivalent in size to the city of Pittsburgh to Iraq in a matter of days. It can also spend $300-$500 million in one night dropping Cruise missiles on Baghdad. Compare these two facts with Powell’s delaying response and the paltry initial $15 million, and you can see war, death and destruction are more important than humanitarian concerns. Affected countries need money, water and medicine now. Assessments can wait.

The current death toll stands at 50,000 dead, with that number predicted to double with communicable disease from a lack of drinking water and the destruction of sanitation infrastructure. The sheer geographic scale of the disaster, affecting ten countries, is stretching aid agencies to the limit. Indonesia is worst hit, with 27,000 dead, followed by Sri Lanka, which has so far suffered 18,000 deaths. Four East African countries are now reporting casualty figures, with more than 100 killed by the tsunamis in Somalia. In Sri Lanka one million people are now homeless and have no safe drinking water. The cleanup operation in the Maldives could be higher than its annual GDP, such is the  devastation. The United Nations has said it is the most expensive natural disaster ever. Aid agencies have said it will require the largest charitable world response ever.

POSSIBLE WARM UPS / COOL DOWNS

1. CHAT:  Talk in pairs or groups about charity / international aid / international responsibility / wealth / poverty / military spending / …
To make things more dynamic, try telling your students they only have one minute (or 2) on each chat topic before changing topics / partners. Change topic / partner frequently to energize the class.

2. TSUNAMI BRAINSTORM: Brainstorm any facts students know about the calamitous tsunamis and write them on the board. In pairs students / groups talk about them.

3. ENOUGH?: Brainstorm some things that could cost a government $15,000,000 and write them on the board (15 kilometres of highway, a Public Relations campaign to host an Olympics games, 20 Cruise missiles ….). Pairs compare these items with what Colin Powell pledged in relief effort for tsunami victims. Each pair has to provide a one-sentence response summarizing their thoughts on Colin Powell’s aid pledge. Once responses are on the board, pairs discuss, and vote on the ‘best’ response.

4. 2-MINUTE DEBATES: Students face each other in pairs and engage in the following (for-fun) 2-minute debates. Students A are assigned the first argument, students B the second. Rotate pairs to ensure a lively pace and noise level is kept:
Governments like war, not humanitarian concerns. vs. No country likes war.
War and missile building helps domestic economies. vs  Wars are a burden on economies.
America’s offer is a joke. vs America already gives a lot to the world.
The world doesn’t really care about the tsunami victims. vs. The people of the world will respond quickly and generously.
People are hungry for news, not hungry to help. vs. But news will make people help.
Spending $300-$500 million dollars on one bombing raid on Baghdad is a sin. vs. The money and bombs are for humanitarian purposes, to help the people of Baghdad.
This disaster will be forgotten within a month. vs. It will be in the news all year.

PRE-READING IDEAS

1. WORD SEARCH: Students look in their dictionaries / computer to find c ollocates, other meanings, information, synonyms … of the words ‘token’, and ‘aid’.

2. HEADLINE: Put the article headline on the board for students to talk about / predict / speculate. Pairs / groups formulate and present their own guesses as to the contents of the report.

3. TRUE / FALSE: Students look at the headline and predict whether they believe the following statements are true or false:

(a)  Tsunami death tolls have stopped rising.  T / F
(b)  America has offered extremely generous support to tsunami victims.  T / F
(c)  In an interview with ABC about aid, Colin Powell trod carefully.  T / F
(d)  America spent $300-$500 million in one night dropping Cruise missiles on Baghdad.  T / F
(e)  The death toll of 50,000 is predicted to double.  T / F
(f)  The sheer scale of the disaster is stretching aid agencies to the limit.   T / F
(g)  In Sri Lanka people have safe drinking water.  T / F
(h)  The cleanup operation in the Maldives could be higher than its annual GDP.  T / F

4. SYNONYM MATCH: Students match the following synonyms from the article:

(a)	alarmingly	estimate
(b)	fight off	destruction
(c)	assessment	gravely
(d)	tragedy	number
(e)	paltry	calamity
(f)	toll	contemptible
(g)	communicable	fatality
(h)	disaster	catastrophe
(i)	casualty	repel
(j)	devastation	contagious

5. PHRASE MATCH: Students match the following phrases based on the article (sometimes more than one combination is possible):

(a)	death	a while
(b)	fight off	hit
(c)	take us	disease
(d)	international	to double
(e)	in a matter	tolls
(f)	the death toll	disaster
(g)	predicted	tragedy
(h)	communicable	stands at 50,000
(i)	geographic	accusations
(j)	worst	of days
(k)	natural	scale

 

WHILE READING ACTIVITIES

1. GAP-FILL:  Put the missing words under each paragraph into the gaps.

50,000 Dead – US Token Aid

While death tolls __________ alarmingly higher each hour, Colin Powell did his best yesterday to fight off accusations that aid donations from the American government are __________. He said America “will do more” to help the tsunami victims, but didn’t say when. In an interview with ABC he __________ carefully, “It will take us a while to make a careful assessment of what is needed ... This is indeed an international tragedy, and we are going to do everything we can.” What America has __________ it can do well is move an army and supplies equivalent in size to the city of Pittsburgh to Iraq in a matter of days. It can also spend $300-$500 million in one night __________ Cruise missiles on Baghdad. Compare these two facts with Powell’s delaying response and the paltry initial $15 million, and you can see war, death and __________ are more important than humanitarian concerns. Affected countries need money, water and medicine now. Assessments can wait.		trod dropping stingy rise destruction proved
The current death toll __________ at 50,000 dead, with that number predicted to double with communicable disease from a __________ of drinking water and the destruction of sanitation infrastructure. The __________ geographic scale of the disaster, affecting ten countries, is stretching aid agencies to the limit. Indonesia is __________ hit, with 27,000 dead, followed by Sri Lanka, which has so far suffered 18,000 deaths. Four East African countries are now reporting __________ figures, with more than 100 killed by the tsunamis in Somalia. In Sri Lanka one million people are now homeless and have no safe drinking water. The cleanup operation in the Maldives could be higher than its annual GDP, such is the devastation. The United Nations has said it is the most expensive natural disaster ever. Aid agencies have said it will require the largest __________ world response ever.		worst stands charitable lack casualty sheer

3. TRUE/FALSE:  Students check their answers to the T/F exercise.

4. SYNONYMS:  Students check their answers to the synonyms exercise.

5. PHRASE MATCH: Students check their answers to the phrase match exercise.

6. QUESTIONS: Students make notes for questions they would like to ask the class about the article.

7. VOCABULARY:  Students circle any words they do not understand. In groups pool unknown words and use dictionaries to find the meanings.

POST READING IDEAS

1. GAP-FILL: Check the answers to the gap-fill exercise.

2. QUESTIONS:  Students ask the discussion questions they thought of above to their partner / group / class. Pool the questions for all students to share.

3. VOCABULARY: As a class, go over the vocabulary students circled above.

4. STUDENT-GENERATED AID SURVEY: Pairs/Groups write down 3 questions based on the article. Conduct their surveys alone. Report back to partners to compare answers. Report to other groups / the whole class. Back in pairs students discuss their findings.

5. AID DISCUSSION: Students ask each other the following questions based on the article:

(a)  What do you think of America’s offer of $15 million?
(b)  What do you think the figure should be?
(c)  What needs to be done for the people of the affected regions?
(d)  What needs to be done to change the mindsets of people in developed countries to provide more help in international tragedies?
(e)  In between news items on CNN I saw the same TV commercial for a diamond store encouraging women to buy themselves diamonds. What do you think of these two situations (pictures of dead babies and pictures of wealthy diamond-wearing models)?
(f)  Should charity be a bigger national concern?
(g)  Would you donate $100 to tsunami aid or buy a pair of Nike sneakers?
(h)  Bombs on Baghdad, token aid for an impoverished and destroyed world region. Why does the world have such strange priorities?
(i)  Colin Powell said he America would do, ‘everything we can’ to help. Isn’t this a lie – Won’t America do just a little, and nowhere near the money they ‘can’ spend on fighting wars?
(j)  Have you done anything for the tsunami victims?
(k)  Teacher’s additional questions

6. OPINIONS: Comment on the following opinions regarding aid
- America likes war more than helping in humanitarian catastrophes.
– The whole world doesn’t care. People just look at TV and say ‘oh, isn’t this terrible’ and then think about what they want to buy next.
- There should be a world citizen’s tax solely to help victims of natural disasters and wars.
- The plight of the third world should be an elementary school subject. There needs to be more compassion, started at an earlier age.
– TV stations love giving facts and pretty graphics. They should show mo re shocking photos and give information non-stop about how we can donate money, and where that money might be spent.
- Why does everyone always blame America? We are always the biggest donor.
- Make love not war.
- This is a fantastic opportunity for the USA to repair its international reputation and truly help people of all religions. Mr. Bush, are you listening?

HOMEWORK

1. VOCAB EXTENSION: Choose several of the words from the text. Use a dictionary or the Google search field to build up more associations / collocations of each word.

2. INTERNET: Search the Internet and find more information on Sri Lanka. Share your findings with your class next lesson.

3. A DAY IN MY LIFE: Imagine you are an aid worker in Sri Lanka. Write your diary entry for one day in your work.

4. LETTER TO COLIN: Write a letter to US Secretary of State Colin Powell telling him what you think of his comments about how America will help the tsunami victims.

ANSWERS

TRUE / FALSE:

(a)  Tsunami death tolls have stopped rising.  F
(b)  America has offered extremely generous support to tsunami victims.  F
(c)  In an interview with ABC about aid, Colin Powell trod carefully.  T
(d)  America spent $300-$500 million in one night dropping Cruise missiles on Baghdad.  T
(e)  The death toll of 50,000 is predicted to double.  T
(f)  The sheer scale of the disaster is stretching aid agencies to the limit.   T
(g)  In Sri Lanka people have safe drinking water.  F
(h)  The cleanup operation in the Maldives could be higher than its annual GDP.  T

SYNONYM MATCH:

(a)	alarmingly	gravely
(b)	fight off	repel
(c)	assessment	estimate
(d)	tragedy	calamity
(e)	paltry	contemptible
(f)	toll	number
(g)	communicable	contagious
(h)	disaster	catastrophe
(i)	casualty	fatality
(j)	devastation	destruction

PHRASE MATCH:

(a)	death	tolls
(b)	fight off	accusations
(c)	take us	a while
(d)	international	tragedy
(e)	in a matter	of days
(f)	the death toll	stands at 50,000
(g)	predicted	to double
(h)	communicable	disease
(i)	geographic	scale
(j)	worst	hit
(k)	natural	disaster