Английский язык. Учимся вместе 
ACTIVATING
Exercise 1. Work in pairs and answer the questions
STUDENT A’s QUESTIONS
1) What images spring to mind when you hear the word ‘media’?
2) What is the media?
3) Do you think the media have too much power?
4) What are the good and bad things about the media in your country?
5)Do you like the fact that today, media coverage of world events in instantaneous and extensive?
6) What do you think about countries that ban or restrict the media?
7) Do you always believe the media?
8) Is the media of your country biased towards the views of your government over the war on terror?
9) How is today’s media different from that of 30 years ago?
10) Can you think of any examples of the media being irresponsible?
STUDENT B’s QUESTIONS
1)Would you like to work for the media?
2)What do you think of the mass media?
3)What countries do you think have very good media and which have not so good media?
4)Why do people fear the media?
5)Should there be any censorship of the media?
6)Are reporters in today’s media lazy?
7)Do you think the media tries to manipulate people or change their views?
8)Is it a good idea for a country’s media to be controlled by the government?
9)Do you trust the media?
10) Does the media care more about truth or profits?
Exercise 2. Comment the quotation
The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses.
Malcolm X
Choose some more Education Quotes to comment
Exercise 2. Put the words in the correct group
Exercise 3. Listen to the following video and fill in the gaps with the missing information
INPUT
Exercise 1. Read about Social Media
A I’m sure you have heard of Facebook and Twitter. In fact, there is a good chance that you use them. You might also have heard of LinkedIn and MySpace. These four websites are the most popular social media websites. But what exactly is “social media”?
B Social media can be defined as web-based and mobile media that are used for people to interact, connect and communicate with each other. These types of media often involve the creation and sharing of content (writing, pictures, and video) that people make themselves, mostly through the Internet.
C In general, there are six different types of social media. The first type involves people getting together to work on a project. Wikipedia is an example of this type of social media. Blogs and micro-blogs (such as Twitter) are another type of social media. There are other websites that allow people to share content such as pictures, articles or videos. YouTube is the most well-known website of this type. Another type of social media are social networking sites. These sites allow people to stay in touch with friends, make new ones and join communities. Facebook is an example of this type of social media site. Many people like to play games on the Internet and, yes, there are social media games as well. These games allow gamers to interact with each other and play with or against other gamers. World of Warcraft is a good example. The final type of social media is websites like Second Life, where people can create avatars and use and create objects, as if they were in the real world.
D Social media are different from traditional media. In the past, media was created from one place, normally a company. Then the company would send out the media to consumers. Magazines, books and movies are all examples of this. But with social media, many individual people in different locations create content. Another difference is that people who produce content in social media don’t need very special skills. On the other hand, in traditional media, people need special skills to produce something. Another difference is that social media can be produced much faster. It takes only a few minutes to write a twitter post, for example. But it can take many months to put together a magazine, or years to make a movie.
E Some people think social media is good and some think it is bad. But whatever you might think, social media is here to stay.
Exercise 2.Answer the questions
1. What is the text about? •What social media is and how it is different from traditional media. •What social media is, how it is different from regular media and what the future holds for social media. •Many companies are using social media to reach their customers and promote their goods and services. •How social media can help people improve their lives in different parts of the world. •How social media has changed in the last 5 years and predictions about the future of social media.
2. What is the main idea of paragraph B? •The differences between social media and traditional media. •What is social media? •The different types of social media •Four of the most popular social media websites.
3. What is discussed in paragraph A? •Four of the most popular social media websites. •The differences between social media and traditional media. •What is social media? •The different types of social media
4. What is the main idea of paragraph D? •The differences between social media and traditional media. •Four of the most popular social media websites. •The different types of social media What is social media?
Exercise 1. Read the article Are you a blogger too?
Only a few years ago, a “web log” was a little-known way of keeping an online diary. At that time, it seemed like “blogs” (as they quickly became known) were only for serious computer geeks or obsessives.
This didn’t last long, though, and within a very short period of time, blogs exploded – blogs were everywhere, and it seemed that almost everyone read blogs, or was a blogger.
The blogging craze of a couple of years ago (when it was estimated that ten new blogs were started somewhere in the world every minute) now seems to have died down a bit – yet thousands of blogs (probably the better ones) remain. Blogs are no now longer seen as the exclusive possession of geeks and obsessives, and are now seen as important and influential sources of news and opinion. So many people read blogs now, that it has even been suggested that some blogs may have been powerful enough to influence the result of the recent US election.
Blogs are very easy to set up – all you need is a computer, an internet connection and the desire to write something. The difference between a blog and a traditional internet site is that a blog is one page consisting mostly of text (with perhaps a few pictures), and – importantly – space for people to respond to what you write. The best blogs are similar to online discussions, where people write in responses to what the blogger has written. Blogs are regularly updated – busy blogs are updated every day, or even every few hours.
Not all blogs are about politics, however. There are blogs about music, film, sport, books – any subject you can imagine has its enthusiasts typing away and giving their opinions to fellow enthusiasts or anyone else who cares to read their opinions.
So many people read blogs now that the world of blog writers and blog readers has its own name – the “blogosphere”.
But how influential, or important, is this blogosphere really? One problem with blogs is that many people who read and write them seem only to communicate with each other. When people talk about the influence of the blogosphere, they do not take into account the millions of people around the world who are not bloggers, never read blogs, and don’t even have access to a computer, let alone a good internet connection.
Sometimes, it seems that the blogosphere exists only to influence itself, or that its influence is limited to what is actually quite a small community. Blogs seem to promise a virtual democracy – in which anyone can say anything they like, and have their opinions heard – but who is actually listening to these opinions? There is still little hard evidence that blogs have influenced people in the way that traditional mass media (television and newspapers) have the ability to do.
Exercise 2. Look at these words from the text and decide which you think is the best definition of them.
1. Geeks are people who…
2. A blog is …
3. A blogger is a person who…
4. The blogosphere is…
5. A craze is …
Exercise 3. Decide if these sentences are true or false.
1. Not long ago, only people who knew a lot about computers had blogs.
2. The increase in popularity of blogs has happened very quickly.
3. Today, blogs are becoming less popular.
4. Blogs affected the outcome of the US election in 2008.
5. If you can use a computer with internet access, you can start a blog.
6. On a blog, people respond to what is written.
7. Blogs concern many different subjects.
8. According to the article, bloggers do not reach many people around the world.
9. The article suggests that it is not true that blogs have a lot of influence.
10. Television has more influence than blogs.
Exercise 1. Watch about media in Britain
Complete the sentences while watching
Exercise 1. Match the words and definitions before listening
web log, subcontractors , definitely, eye-witness, news-gather, claim, fabricated, armed with, the source, tycoon, scoop, compile
a)equipped with, carrying b)demand, asking for something that you think you have a right to c)to put together d)certainly, without a doubt e)a person who sees something happening with their own eyes f)invented, untrue, made-up g)a person or organization that collects news information h)an exclusive story that only one journalist knows about i)the place where something comes from j) people who carry out part of a job for the person who sells the finished product
A successful business person who owns a number of different companies.
OUTPUT
Exercise 1. Are you satisfied with Belarusian journalism?
Does what you see and hear on television news, on news radio, in newspapers, in news magazines, on the Web:
a)generally satisfy your needs for news?
b)generally dissatisfy you c)no opinion
Exercise 2. Imagine you woke up one day and there was no news, no newspapers, no magazines, no TV news, no Internet… Would you miss them? Why (not)?
Exercise 1. Write a magazine article about any latest news happened at your school / in your city / country.
PROJECT
Participants are invited to write articles and news stories, create advertisements and banners, take interviews and pictures, make collages and calenders, write diary entries and poems, or any other means to express their thoughts and feelings on any issue in any creative way.
Students are invited to write on any topic which is close to their heart. In this session, we will highlight a current topic that is making news and look for responses from youth all across the world. From our past experiences we have seen that there are a few topics that have always been favourites among the teenagers all over the world.
Among the topics that have made news and could be taken up are technological advances, social media, peer pressure, weight problems, people who inspire, what affects you the most, sports athletes, and must visit places.
The final product will be a published magazine, published as both an e-magazine and a physical copy. A website will be lauched also for the students’ contributions to be uploaded. The students will design awards and advertisements using Microsoft Publisher, and use Photoshop and Paint to make illustrations. Podcasts will be uloaded, along with photostories, videos, and short films. Powerpoints can be used to presnt fables and dramas, and digital cameras can be used by the students to document their work.
The website will be a platform to upload all the work done by the students. The e-magazine and the physical copy will have the best work of the students. A jury will be in place to select the best contributions so that the physical copy of the magazine gets printed.
CULTURE NOTE
Exercise 1. Go to and read about social networks
Social Networks
Do the names MySpace, Facebook, Orkut, etc. ring a bell? They probably do because they are some of the most popular sites on the internet today. These sites are all called ‘social networking’ sites because they help people meet and discuss things online. Each of these social networking sites has its own strengths: MySpace is especially popular among teenagers, Facebook is popular with college age people, Orkut is especially loved in Brazil, and CyWorld is the site to visit in South Korea. The common thread between all of these social networks is that they provide a place for people to interact, rather than a place to go to read or listen to ‘content’.
Web 2.0
Social networks are considered to be web 2.0. What does this mean? To understand this, it’s important to understand what the original web did (often called web 1.0). Back in the nineties, the internet — or web — was a place to go to read articles, listen to music, get information, etc. Most people didn’t contribute to the sites. They just ‘browsed’ the sites and took advantage of the information or resources provided. Of course, some people did create their own sites. However, creating a site was difficult. You needed to know basic HTML coding (the original language the internet uses to ‘code’ pages). It certainly wasn’t something most people wanted to do as it could take hours to get a basic page just right. Things began to get easier when blogs (from web log) were introduced. With blogs, many more people began writing ‘posts’, as well as commenting on other people’s blogs.
MySpace Surprises Everybody
In 2003 a site named MySpace took the internet by storm. It was trying to mimic the most popular features of Friendster, the first social networking site. It quickly became popular among young users and the rest was history. Soon everyone was trying to develop a social networking site. The sites didn’t provide ‘content’ to people, they helped people create, communicate and share what they loved including music, images and videos. They key to the success of these sites is that they provide a platform on which users create the content. This is very different from the beginning of the internet which focused on providing ‘content’ for people to enjoy.
Key to Success
Relying on users to create content is the key to the success of web 2.0 companies. Besides the social networking sites discussed here, other huge success stories include: Wikipedia, Digg.com and the latest success — Twitter. All of these companies rely on the desire of users to communicate with each other, thereby creating the ‘content’ that others want to consume.
Exercise 1. Choose the correct answer.
1. Which social networking site was not mentioned in the reading? •MySpace •LinkedIn •Facebook
2. What is Facebook? •A blog •A content site •A social networking site
3. Where is Orkut especially popular? •In Japan •In South Korea •In Brazil
4. Which phrase best describes what people do at social networking sites? •They interact with other people. •They browse articles and other content. •They code pages in HTML.
5. Social networks are considered: •Web 1.0 sites •Web 2.0 sites •Web blogs
6. What was the original web mainly used for? •Interacting with other people •Browsing content •Creating pages in HTML
Exercise 2. Read the article and insert the suitable word.
Internet Safety
Twenty …ago, kids in school had never even heard of the internet. Now, I’ll bet you can’t find a single person in your school who hasn’t at least heard of it. In fact, many of us use it on a regular basis and even have access to it from our homes! The ‘net’ in …really stands for network. A …is two or more computers connected together so that information can be … or sent from one computer to another. The internet is a vast resource for all types of information. You may enjoy using it to do research for a school project, downloading your favorite songs or communicating with friends and family. Information is accessed through web pages that companies, organizations and individuals create and post. It’s kind of like a giant bulletin board that the whole world uses! But since anyone can put anything on the internet, you also have to be careful and use your best judgement and a little common sense. Just because you read something on a piece of paper someone sticks on a bulletin board doesn’t mean it’s good information, or even correct, for that matter. So you have to be sure that whoever posted the … knows what they’re talking about, especially if you’re doing…! But what if you’re just emailing people? You still have to be very careful. If you’ve never met the person that you’re communicating with online, you could be on dangerous ground! You should never give out any personal information to someone you don’t know, not even your name! And just like you can’t …the information on every website out there, you can’t rely on what strangers you ‘meet’ on the internet tell you either. Just like you could make up things about yourself to tell someone, someone else could do the same to you!