Page 67 - @ccess 3 Teacher´s Book

Practice 4

Running
the Show

Activity 1 Warm-up stage
• This practice involves talking
about TV. There are two
components: first, talking
about reactions, emotions and
impressions and being able
to convey the reasons for such
reactions ( as they can be more
of a feeling than a rational issue).
The second component is
being able to talk about mass
media in general. In order to do
so, it is necessary to broaden
students’ repertoire of words and
expressions about mass media.

• If you and your students have
restricted access to mass
media, this practice could be
difficult. We have included
the transcripts of some TV
programs in the Reader’s Book.
Given the expected learning
outcomes, it might be difficult to
cover this practice if you have
no access to a TV. However,
writing notes about impressions
and reactions can be done with other artistic works, which can be used as a last-resort substitute. However,
we strongly suggest using alternatives based on TV even if access itself can be difficult. For instance, you
could use screenshots and audio recordings of programs (which, since they are for educational purposes,
can be used free of copyright issues).
• One way to adapt this brainstorming session is to link it with actual TV programs which substantiate the
different concepts listed.
• Help your students with the concepts, if they still don’t understand them. Try to focus more on
brainstorming the technical aspects of the programs, rather than on the names of actors or show titles.

Activity 2
• Your students may substitute this with a program broadcast in their first language. However, this will make
it difficult to analyze some important features (especially grammatical and phonetic) which are readily
available in English broadcasts. If resources are available, you may use the recording of a TV series (which
are for sale in either digital or physical formats).
• When watching a TV series, though quite tempting, refrain from activating subtitles (and tell your students
to turn them off). This can be difficult even at higher levels of proficiency but it’s really useful.

66 Teacher’s Book / Practice 4