2C Develop your spoken mediation skills

 
Output         Talk to a friend and give them advice
Goal             Give reasons for doing something
Focus           Paraphrase words and ideas
 
CEFR mediation descriptor
Can paraphrase more simply the main points made in short, straightforward spoken or written
texts on familiar subjects (e.g. short magazine articles, interviews) to make the contents
accessible for others and answer further questions about details.
 
Timing         45 minutes 
 
Teacher’s notes 
 
Introduction 
The goal of this lesson is for students to practice paraphrasing words and ideas to help them
summarize an article. To help them achieve this, they will focus on using verbally synonyms,
definitions or glosses, eliminating suffixes or prefixes and re-wording complex sentences.

We suggest doing this activity before doing the Develop you reading section on page 94 of
Roadmap B1+ Students’ Book.  
 
Warm-up
Ask students to discuss the questions: What’s the difference between social media and social
networks? (Social networks -Facebook, Twitter, etc- are part of social media, which also
includes blogs, multimedia, geolocation, etc.) Who can be addicted to them? What would be
the symptoms? How can you control that kind of addiction?
 
Prepare
1 Students read the scenario and discuss if Marguerite’s child should use social media more
carefully.
2 Students read the focus box and, in pairs, repeat their ideas using other words.
3 Students read the article and paraphrase as many words in bold as possible.
4 Students choose the main ideas of the article and discuss why Marguerite’s daughter should
stop using open social networks.
 
Mediate
4 Students get together with another classmate. One of them play Marguerite and the other
one, her friend.
5 The pair of students perform the conversation, summarizing the article and explaining why
the child has to be convinced about stopping using social media so much. Encourage using the
words in bold from the article and paraphrasing them.
6 Students exchange roles and they play the conversation between Marguerite and her child.
 
Discussion and follow-up
1 What would be final decision of the child?
2 Open discussion: Should the government control the social media? Why?
 
Evaluation
The important information here is reflecting the negative consequences of using open social
networks
relevant point is to be able to catch the “essence” of a spoken text and express it again in just
few notes. For the chosen scenario, the main ideas are:
Working at night is not as good as working during the day.
Our bodies work different at night.
There are more negative things than positive ones if you work at night during a long time.
Having more free time, more holidays and extra money are some of the few advantages of
working at night.

Regarding the mediation task, the following student spoken productions show the kind of
student output that can be expected. These could also be used in peer evaluation if desired. 
 
If using an interlingual or intralingual approach you would expect students to paraphrase in
their message the most important points from each advert, along with translating directly or
not some of the information or words. You can also apply evaluation criteria for writing
(register, pronunciation, intonation, expression, etc) if you choose. See page 00 for suggested
criteria.
 
Examples of student spoken production
Marks awarded are based on the criteria in the rubric on page 00. 
 
Student A
 
Teacher’s comments
This is a good production because it summarizes the main notes taken from the spoken input.
There are some minor mistakes but the message for
is crystal clear.
Marks: 4/5
 
Student B

Teacher’s comments
This is a weak production because it doesn’t summarize the majority of points. The note taking
activity is not reflected in the spoken production.
Marks: 1/5
 
 
1C Develop your spoken mediation skills
English
 
[Objectives box:]
Output         Talk to a friend and give them advice
Goal             Give reasons for doing something
Focus           Paraphrase words and ideas from an article
 
[Opener question(s)]
1 What’s the difference between social media and social networks?
2 Who can be addicted to them? What would be the symptoms? How can you control that
kind of addiction?

[Getting into the task:]

Read the scenario. Why do you think Marguerite’s daughter should use social media more
carefully?

[Introduce the Focus box + task]

2 Read the focus box and, in pairs, paraphrase the ideas you used before using other words.
 
[Focus box styling]
Paraphrase words and ideas
In order to explain something in a simpler way, we can always paraphrase. Paraphrasing is
saying something in a different way. You can use synonyms, another definitions, eliminate
prefixes or suffixes or changing verbs and its tenses. When paraphrasing ideas, take notes on
the subject using your own words and then rewrite the ideas using your notes, without looking
at the original text.
Open social media have been questioned recently. => Many people don’t like using open social
media nowadways.
The need for keeping personal privacy may increase in the near future. => The importance of
online privacy is likely to raise in the near future.

[Some kind of activity to focus on the sub-skill]

3 Read the article.
a With the help of your partner, paraphrase as many words in bold from the article as possible.
 
Prepare
4 Look back at the scenario and the article. What are its main ideas?
5 Why should Marguerite’s daughter stop using open social networks?
 
Mediate
6 Get together with another classmate. One of you will be Marguerite and the other one, her
friend.
a If you are Marguerite’s friend, summarize the article and explain Marguerite why she has to
convince her daughter about stop using social media so much.
b If you are Marguerite, ask your friend for clarification if you hear words you don’t understand
very well. What do you mean? Can you explain it?
7 Exchange roles and if you played the friend, now play Marguerite’s child, listen to your
mother and ask questions if needed.

[scenario]
Your friend Marguerite needs your help because her child is addicted to social media. Not so
long ago, the teenager was called Ugly Duckling but now everybody praises her looks. Although
the child is not interested in publicity or becoming a model, he/she wants to work in
journalism and uses social media too much. Marguerite has found the following article but
doesn’t understand its language very well. She has asked you to explain it to her while having a
coffee. Based on the article, Marguerite will also ask you for clarification of some words or
ideas and what to tell her child so he/she can change her behaviour.

[input. Pg. 94. A ROOM OF MY OWN]

A ROOM OF MY OWN
Kate Jenkins asks why young people are leaving the wide-open spaces of open social media.
‘I first started thinking about quitting when I woke up one morning and found my
grandmother had liked one of my photographs during the night – and not just any old photo
either, but one that I really wouldn’t have shown her in any other circumstances!’ Almir
Amsellem is explaining why he stopped using Facebook, the world’s most popular social
networking site. ‘Like most of my friends, I used to post all the time,’ he continues, ‘but then I
suddenly realised how many people could see what I was putting up, and I was just really
uncomfortable with that idea.’
Almir is one of tens of millions of young people who over recent years have made the move
from the more open public broadcast spaces like Facebook to more private ‘narrowcast’ tools.
‘These days, I’m all about messaging apps and auto-deletion’, he reveals, ‘so what I share goes
no further than a small group of friends, and often ceases to exist after a minute or two
anyway.’ In fact, one of the main reasons why many young people are leaving open platforms
is that they are becoming more and more aware of the way that past posts may come back to
bite them in the future. The knowledge that everyone from employers to universities to banks
now look at social media profiles has resulted in more self-censorship and far safer and more
boring public images, with more personal thoughts and pictures being shared in private
elsewhere.
There may also be psychological benefits to spending less time on open social media. Recent
research suggests that spending large amounts of time on some of the most popular platforms
can have a negative effect and lead to increased worries about body image, sleep problems as
well as increased anxiety, loneliness and depression, all problems that Karen Roach, 21,
recognises. ‘I used to be totally addicted to social media,’ she admits. ‘I’d wake up and the first
thing I’d do was check all my pages to see what I’d missed. I’d post my carefully selected selfies
and then check back every minute or so to see how many likes I was getting! It was crazy. I
started having panic attacks and, in the end, it got so bad that I just decided enough was
enough. That was about six months ago and I’ve felt far less stressed since then. I’ve learnt
that sometimes it’s nice to be unreachable, away from technology.’
However, despite such developments, there may be problems ahead. If fewer people provide
shared content and like their friends’ posts, then social media companies receive less income
from advertising. Advertisers are particularly keen to target young people as they feel young
people's tastes are more easily influenced, but in return for placing adverts, advertisers want
access to as much data as they can get. Less data equals fewer opportunities to sell, and this is
the real issue with the move to closed ‘narrowcast’ platforms: it’s much harder to sell to their
users. While this may not worry Almir as he chats and sends photos to his closest friends, for
the narrowcast companies themselves it’s a threat to their existence. How can they keep going
without advertising revenue? And what will happen if they can’t?

1C Develop your spoken mediation skills

Spanish
 
This should be the same as the English, but with the Spanish text.
 
[Spanish input]

UNA HABITACIÓN PROPIA

Kate Jenkins se pregunta por qué los jóvenes están dejando los amplios espacios
desbloqueados de las redes sociales.
"Empecé a pensar en salirme cuando me desperté una mañana y me di cuenta de que
a mi abuela le había gustado una de mis fotografías hecha durante la noche, y no
cualquier foto vieja, ¡sino una que yo no le habría enseñado bajo ninguna
circunstancia!". Almir Amsellem explica por qué dejó de usar Facebook, la red social
más popular del mundo. "Como la mayoría de mis amigos, solía subir posts todo el
tiempo", continúa, "pero de repente me di cuenta de cuánta gente podía ver lo que
estaba subiendo, y me sentí muy incómodo con esa idea".
Almir es una de las decenas de millones de jóvenes que en los últimos años han pasado
de los espacios públicos de difusión más abiertos, desbloqueados, como Facebook, a
unas herramientas más privadas de "difusión restringida". "Hoy en día, estoy más a
favor de las aplicaciones de mensajería y del auto-borrado", revela, "así que lo que
comparto no va más allá de un pequeño grupo de amigos, y a menudo deja de existir
después de uno o dos minutos de todos modos". De hecho, una de las principales
razones por las que muchos jóvenes abandonan las plataformas abiertas es que cada
vez son más conscientes de la forma en que las publicaciones pasadas pueden volver a
morderlos en el futuro. El conocimiento de que todo el mundo, desde los empresarios
hasta las universidades y los bancos, miran ahora los perfiles de las redes sociales ha
dado como resultado una mayor autocensura y una imagen pública mucho más segura
y aburrida, con más imágenes e ideas personales que se comparten en privado en
otros lugares.
También puede haber beneficios psicológicos al pasar menos tiempo en los medios
sociales abiertos. Recientes investigaciones sugieren que pasar mucho tiempo en
algunas de las plataformas más populares puede tener un efecto negativo y provocar
un aumento de la preocupación por el aspecto físico y problemas de sueño, así como
un aumento de la ansiedad, la soledad y la depresión, problemas todos ellos que Karen
Roach, de 21 años, reconoce. "Solía ser totalmente adicta a las redes sociales", admite.
"Me despertaba y lo primero que hacía era revisar todas mis páginas para ver qué me
había perdido. Publicaba mis selfies cuidadosamente seleccionados y luego volvía cada
minuto más o menos para ver cuántos Likes estaba recibiendo! Fue una locura.
Comencé a tener ataques de pánico y al final, fue todo tan malo que decidí que ya era
suficiente. Eso fue hace unos seis meses y me he sentido mucho menos estresada
desde entonces. He aprendido que a veces es bueno estar lejos de la tecnología".
Sin embargo, a pesar de esta evolución, puede haber problemas en el futuro. Si menos
personas proporcionan contenido compartido y les gustan los mensajes de sus amigos,
entonces las compañías de las redes sociales reciben menos ingresos por publicidad.
Los anunciantes están especialmente interesados en dirigirse a los jóvenes, ya que
sienten que los gustos de los jóvenes son más fácilmente influenciables, pero a cambio
de colocar anuncios, los anunciantes quieren tener acceso a todos los datos que
puedan obtener. Menos datos equivalen a menos oportunidades de venta, y este es el
verdadero problema de cambiarse a plataformas cerradas de "difusión restringida": es
mucho más difícil vender a sus usuarios. Aunque esto puede no preocupar a Almir
mientras charla y envía fotos a sus amigos más cercanos, para las propias compañías
de difusión restringida es una amenaza a su existencia. ¿Cómo pueden seguir adelante
sin ingresos por publicidad? ¿Y qué pasará si no pueden?