Ranking current affairs topics pairwork (checking/ clarifying)

Current affairs topics ranking Checking and clarifying language task Student A

Together with your partner, try to rank the 20 current affairs topics below and on your partner’s worksheet by how interested you are in reading and speaking about them in class. You mustn’t show your list to your partner and you must each write the same list of 20 things in the same order, using checking and clarifying phrases when you need to. You don’t need to write the parts in brackets.

· Controversial topics (= topics that people have very strong and very different opinions about)
· Corporate scandals (= companies doing bad things)
· Domestic politics (= politics in Japan)
· Economic reform (= the government trying to improve the economy by changing things)
· Education reform (e.g. introducing TOEFL into university testing)
· Free trade (= being able to buy and sell between countries freely and without paying tax)
· Futurology (= ideas about how the future will be, for example future technology and working life)
· Health scares (e.g. SARS and bird flu)
· International development (for example helping poor people in developing countries such as Sudan and Burma)
· International politics (= politics in other countries, e.g. USA)

1. ________________________________________________________________

2. ________________________________________________________________

3. ________________________________________________________________

4. ________________________________________________________________

5. ________________________________________________________________

6. ________________________________________________________________

7. ________________________________________________________________

8. ________________________________________________________________

9. ________________________________________________________________

10. ________________________________________________________________

11. ________________________________________________________________

12. ________________________________________________________________

13. ________________________________________________________________

14. ________________________________________________________________

15. ________________________________________________________________

16. ________________________________________________________________

17. ________________________________________________________________

18. ________________________________________________________________

19. ________________________________________________________________

20. ________________________________________________________________

Add any of your own ideas to that list.

Put your partner’s choices into their needs analysis form and hand it into the teacher.

For homework, bring in two English language news stories that you find interesting. For the first one, write a very short summary to dictate to your partner. For the second, memorise the story so that you can explain it to someone without any help.

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Current affairs topics ranking Checking and clarifying language task Student B

· International relations (= the relationships between countries, e.g. how well South Korea and Japan work together)
· Lifestyle (for example health foods, housing and fashion)
· Natural disasters (such earthquakes and tsunamis)
· New media (such as online newspapers and YouTube)
· Recent and forthcoming legislation (= new laws)
· Scientific developments (= discovering and inventing new things)
· Social issues (e.g. unemployment and homelessness)
· Tech (for instance the newest mobile phones and tablet computers)
· The environment (e.g. electric cars and recycling)
· White collar crime (for example insider trading)