Monday January 10, 2005
Intermediate +

THE ARTICLE

The Palestinian election revealed few surprises as PLO chairman Mahmoud Abbas seems to have romped home by a landslide. Exit polls show Mr Abbas, the former prime minister, to have an unassailable 46 per cent lead over his nearest rival, Mustafa Barghouti. Mr Abbas is shown as having 66.3% of the votes cast, with his challenger recording 19.7 per cent, according to the poll conducted by the independent Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research. Such a sweeping victory never really made this election much of a two-horse race, despite seven candidates running. Although Mr. Barghouti is a human rights activist, it is Mr. Abas who always had the better credentials to win, being popular with world (Western) leaders, including Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon. Mr Sharon had refused to negotiate with the late Yasser Arafat, which left the Palestinian-Israeli peace process at a standstill. The task ahead of Mr. Abbas is huge and historic – he has called for an end to the armed struggle against Israeli occupation, achieve peace with his neighbour and secure a viable Palestinian statehood. The world will keep its fingers crossed for Mr. Abbas.

POSSIBLE WARM UPS / COOL DOWNS

1. CHAT:  Talk in pairs or groups about Mahmoud Abbas / Palestine / Intifada / Israel, Middle-East prospects / Ariel Sharon / Yasser Arafat…
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. PALESTINE BRAINSTORM: Brainstorm facts from students about Palestine. Students talk together about these facts.

3. MY ELECTION: Students mill around the class and tell one another about the elections held in their countries – the candidates, the system, the fairness, voter apathy ... Students from the same country could talk about local elections.

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:
- Signs for peace are good. vs. Abbas will not be able to achieve peace with Israel.
- The election was a good day for Palestinian democracy vs. Hamas didn't run and thousands of voters were blocked from voting by Israel.
- Mr Abbas will win the Nobel Peace Prize vs. The Nobel Committee won't make the same mistake twice - previously giving the prize to Yasser Arafat.
- Peace will never be achieved in the Middle-East. vs Of course it will.
- Israel must stop building the Security Fence to secure lasting peace. vs Palestinian attacks on Israelis should be before that.
- Ariel Sharon is a peacemaker. vs. He’s the biggest obstacle to peace.
- America should put more pressure on Israel to make concessions for peace. vs. Israel has already made enough concessions.
- Israel should remove all settlements from the West Bank. vs. But Israelis live there, it’s there home.

PRE-READING IDEAS

1. WORD SEARCH: Students look in their dictionaries / computer to find collocates, other meanings, information, synonyms … of the words ‘surprise’ and ‘home’.

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)  The Palestinian election pulled little surprises.  T / F
(b)  The election was closely contested.  T / F
(c)  The election was never really a two horse race.  T / F
(d)  A total of 237 candidates ran in the election.  T / F
(e)  The nearest challenger was a human rights activist.  T / F
(f)  Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, refuses to talk to Mr. Abbas. T / F
(g)  Mr. Abbas has called for a continuation of the armed struggle against Israel.  T / F
(h)  The world will keepits fingers crossed for Mr. Abbas.  T / F 

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

(a)	election	overwhelming
(b)	romp home	documentation
(c)	former	dead end
(d)	rival	win
(e)	sweeping	workable
(f)	candidates	bargain
(g)	credentials	ex
(h)	negotiate	ballot
(i)	standstill	contenders
(j)	viable	challenger

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

(a)	revealed few	rival
(b)	romped	surprises
(c)	by a	race
(d)	nearest	Yasser Arafat
(e)	sweeping	activist
(f)	a two-horse	home
(g)	human rights	struggle
(h)	the late	victory
(i)	armed	crossed
(j)	keep its fingers	landslide

 

WHILE READING ACTIVITIES

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

Palestinian election a one horse race

The Palestinian election revealed few surprises as PLO chairman Mahmoud Abbas seems to have romped home by a landslide. Exit polls show Mr Abbas, the former pri me minister, to have an unassailable 46 per cent lead over his nearest rival, Mustafa Barghouti. Mr Abbas is shown as having 66.3% of the votes cast, with his challenger recording 19.7 per cent, according to the poll conducted by the independent Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research. Such a sweeping victory never really made this election much of a two-horse race, despite seven candidates running. Although Mr. Barghouti is a human rights activist, it is Mr. Abbas who always had the better credentials to win, being popular with world (Western) leaders, including Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon. Mr Sharon had refused to negotiate with the late Yasser Arafat, which left the Palestinian-Israeli peace process at a standstill. The task ahead of Mr. Abbas is huge and historic – he has called for an end to the armed struggle against Israeli occupation, achieve peace with his neighbour and secure a viable Palestinian statehood. The world will keep its fingers crossed for Mr. Abbas.

rival credentials landslide fingers running revealed negotiate sweeping

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

3. SYNONYMS:  Students check their answers to the synonym exercise.

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

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

6. 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. ‘SURPRISE’/ ‘HOME’: Students make questions based on their findings from pre-reading activity #1.

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

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

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

5. STUDENT-GENERATED 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.

6. ARTICLE DISCUSSION: Students ask each other the following questions based on the article:

(a)  Are you interested in the Palestinian election or the Middle-East peace process?
(b)  What do you think of the future for Palestine and Israel?
(c)  What needs to be done to secure peace?
(d)  Will Mahmoud Abbas move the peace process forward?
(e)  Whose land is it?
(f)  Can Palestinian Arabs and Israelis live side by side in peace?
(g)  Should Israel’s security fence be pulled down?
(h)  Should Palestinians accept the presence of Israeli settlements on the West Bank?
(i)  Do you think there’ll be another war in the Middle-East between Israel and its Arab neighbours?
(j)  What is the connection between the suffering of the Palestinians under Israeli occupation and international terror?
(k)  What do you know of the history of this conflict?
(l) Will Mahmoud Abbas and Ariel Sharon be friends this time next year?
(m) Teacher’s additional questions

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 Palestine. Share your findings with your class next lesson.

3. PALESTINE HISTORY: Create an information poster outlining the history of Palestine.

4. LETTER TO MAHMOUD: Write a letter to Palestinian Prime Minister (elect) Mahmoud Abbas advising him what to do in his firt six months of office.

ANSWERS

TRUE / FALSE:

(a)  The Palestinian election pulled little surprises.  T
(b)  The election was closely contested.  F
(c)  The election was never really a two horse race.  T
(d)  A total of 237 candidates ran in the election.  F
(e)  The nearest challenger was a human rights activist.  T
(f)  Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, refuses to talk to Mr. Abbas. F
(g)  Mr. Abbas has called for a continuation of the armed struggle against Israel.  F
(h)  The world will keep its fingers crossed for Mr. Abbas.  T 

SYNONYM MATCH:

(a)	election	ballot
(b)	romp home	win
(c)	former	ex
(d)	rival	challenger
(e)	sweeping	overwhelming
(f)	candidates	contenders
(g)	credentials	documentation
(h)	negotiate	bargain
(i)	standstill	dead end
(j)	viable	workable

PHRASE MATCH:

(a)	revealed few	surprises
(b)	romped	home
(c)	by a	landslide
(d)	nearest	rival
(e)	sweeping	victory
(f)	a two-horse	race
(g)	human rights	activist
(h)	the late	Yasser Arafat
(i)	armed	struggle
(j)	keep its fingers	crossed

GAP FILL:

Palestinian election a one horse race

The Palestinian election revealed few surprises as PLO chairman Mahmoud Abbas seems to have romped home by a landslide. Exit polls show Mr Abbas, the former prime minister, to have an unassailable 46 per cent lead over his nearest rival, Mustafa Barghouti. Mr Abbas is shown as having 66.3% of the votes cast, with his challenger recording 19.7 per cent, according to the poll conducted by the independent Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research. Such a sweeping victory never really made this election much of a two-horse race, despite seven candidates running. Although Mr. Barghouti is a human rights activist, it is Mr. Abbas who always had the better credentials to win, being popular with world (Western) leaders, including Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon. Mr Sharon had refused to negotiate with the late Yasser Arafat, which left the Palestinian-Israeli peace process at a standstill. The task ahead of Mr. Abbas is huge and historic – he has called for an end to the armed struggle against Israeli occupation, achieve peace with his neighbour and secure a viable Palestinian statehood. The world will keep its fingers crossed for Mr. Abbas.