3A Develop your written mediation skills

 
Output         Write an email
Goal             Explain socio cultural concepts about tourism
Focus           Use examples to make things clearer
 
CEFR mediation descriptor
Can explain how something works by providing examples which draw upon people’s everyday
experiences.
 
Timing         35 minutes 
 
Teacher’s notes 
 
Introduction
The goal of this lesson is for students to reformulate complex information and concepts they
may find in an article. To help them achieve this, they will focus on creating and using
examples of those concepts using their own experience.

We suggest doing this activity before doing the Develop you reading section on page 96 of
Roadmap B1+ Students’ Book.  
 
Warm-up
Ask students to discuss the questions: What are the most touristic places you know of? Why
are they so touristic? What are the effects of tourism in those places?
 
Prepare
1 Students read the article, select the most important ideas and identify the six stages of
tourism.
2 Students read the focus box and, in pairs, select the examples of each stage of tourism in the
text.
3 Students think of specific and personal examples of each stage of tourism in their city.
4 Students read the scenario and make a connection with the article, predicting problems
Angelo may find in his visit.
 
Mediate
4 Students get together with another classmate and write a first draft of your email to Angelo.
5 Students a different classmate and compare both writings.
6 They choose the best parts of each and create a common piece of writing
 
Discussion and follow-up
1 What do you think Angelo will tell you after his visit to Barcelona?
2 Open discussion: as an active neighbour, what would you do to control tourists?
 
Evaluation TO BE DONE LATER
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:
Regarding the mediation task, the following student written 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
Angelo, I’m going to tell you examples of the six stages of tourism.
In Barcelona there is a square with a fountain that became very famous because of tourism. At
the beginning, a group of tourists took a photograph of the fountain and published it in
Facebook. That was the exploration stage (1). Then people saw the post and started to come
to the square to take more pictures (2, involvement). Local people started selling lemonade
there and opened a small kiosk (3, development and 4, consolidation). The kiosk grew bigger
with two more bars giving food and typical dishes but neighbours complained because of the
crowd (5, stagnation). Since nobody did anything, tourists left the square because was very
dirty and nobody has cleaned it (6).
Apart of all this, I am sure you will enjoy your visit to Barcelona because it is a wonderful city
and the government is doing several things to control tourists.

Teacher’s comments
This is an excellent production because it summarizes the main notes and gives very good
examples. The final message is direct and connects with the scenario.
Marks: 5/5
 
Student B
TO BE DONE

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
 
 
3A Develop your written mediation skills
English
 
[Objectives box:]
Output         Write an email
Goal             Explain socio cultural concepts about tourism
Focus           Use examples to make things clearer
 
[Opener question(s)]
1 What are the most touristic places you know of? Why are they so touristic?
2 What are the effects of tourism in those places?

[Getting into the task:]

Read the article and select the most important ideas. What are the six stages of tourism
mentioned?

[Introduce the Focus box + task]

2 Read the focus box and select the examples of each stage of tourism in the text.
 
[Focus box styling]
Use examples to make things clearer
To explain something that is complicated, examples are a great way to simplify and clarify the
information you want to transmit. To come up with examples for your target audience, you
need to think about the other's experience and also your experience, so you can connect both
in relation with the topic to be explained.
There is a square in my neighbourhood that is famous because of a sculpture but tourists broke
it when they wanted to take a picture next to it.
It’s like destroying a part of the city in which you played games when you were a child.

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

3 In pairs, think of specific and personal examples of each stage of tourism in your city.
 
Prepare
4 Read the scenario.
5 Make a connection with the article: what are the problems Angelo may find in his visit to
Barcelona?
 
Mediate
6 Get together with another classmate and write a first draft of your email to Angelo.
7 Find a different classmate and compare both writings.
a Choose the best parts of each and create a common piece of writing

[scenario]
Your friend Angelo loves sociology, travelling, discovering local places and, at the same time,
likes crowds because they prove something is worth visiting. He wants to visit Barcelona but he
has found out the following article and he is confused because of the language used in it.
Angelo has asked you for help understanding the text, especially the six stages of tourism and
he has asked you if they may be a problem in his visit to Barcelona. Write your friend an email
summarizing the main information and providing as many examples as you can think of so
Angelo can have a better idea of what he may find in Barcelona.

[input. Pg. 96/97. Tourism in Barcelona]

Página 96/97
Tourism in Barcelona
Sam Garcia reports from a city that may have become a victim of its own popularity.
1
    
‘It’s so crowded, you can hardly walk down the street, but what’s worse is how the character of the
neighbourhood has changed.’ So says Amparo Peris, owner of the last shoe shop in her part of
Barcelona, a shop which is now closing down. ‘This isn’t just where I ran my business; it’s where I
used to do my own shopping, too. There was a fruit and vegetable store, a baker’s, a pharmacy. My
kids went to the nearby sweet shop and played in the street, but now that’s just impossible. It’s all
just restaurants and bars.’ Forty-five restaurants and bars, to be exact, serving everything from
traditional paella to sushi, in a pedestrianised street only 600 metres long. Of course, all of this
means more choice for the tourists who visit the city, but many locals are now starting to feel that it
also means they now have fewer choices. Having millions of tourists each year has led to rising
rents, the loss of normal day-to-day services, increased noise and other problems. In the last few
years, there have been a number of protests by people who live and work in the city.
2
     
Even those working in the tourist industry are worried. Luis Perreira, a human statue working in the
city centre, says that the city is now attracting a different kind of tourist. ‘They are less polite now.
You get big groups and sometimes someone tries to push me – for a joke. They don’t appreciate my
art.’
3
   
Tourist numbers in Barcelona have increased 500 percent in 25 years and it seems the city has
reached what the academic Richard Butler calls ‘stagnation’. Butler suggests that tourism typically
goes through six stages. First is the ‘exploration’ stage, where a few artists and explorers look for
something new and ‘discover’ a place. Next comes ‘involvement’: tourism begins to increase as the
early explorers talk about their experiences. As a result, local people start providing basic tourist
services and the local government begins to get involved with marketing. Butler calls the stage that
follows ‘development’. Large numbers of tourists from around the world are persuaded to visit and
tourist services grow very quickly, which leads to locals losing control over how tourism develops.
During the fourth stage – ‘consolidation’ – tourism becomes the strongest part of the economy. By
now, it’s mainly run by national or international companies, which build big hotels and tourist
attractions like theme parks or golf courses that spoil the original beauty of the place. The hotels
and attractions often take space, water and other resources from locals and they can often cause
damage to the environment. This results in complaints from local people and this anger grows
during the fifth stage, as has been the case in Barcelona. Because of protests, no new facilities are
developed, and ‘stagnation’ is reached. The question is what happens next. Butler suggests
different possibilities for the sixth stage. The first possibility is that war or disaster could suddenly
end everything. Another is that nothing is done. This leads to a drop in tourist numbers as visitors
don’t like either the local protests or the crowds. Alternatively, action may be taken to reduce
tourist numbers, attract a different type of visitor and improve the situation for locals.
4
   
It seems Barcelona is taking the last option. As a result of all the protests, the local government has
introduced controls on people renting flats to tourists and increased punishments for bad
behaviour. They have also banned performers from certain areas to reduce crowds. Will it work?
For Amparo, it has already come too late, but she sees some hope. Her friends have organised a
closing down party. ‘I didn’t really want to retire now, but seeing all these people, I know I still have
my friends and we can fight this situation together.’

3A Develop your written mediation skills

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