(Youtube Videos Authentic Listening)
Google Drive Folder HERE
A colleague of mine has a whole lesson designed around the Spoken Word Youtube video "Why I Hate School But Love Education" by Suli Breaks. He lent it to me the other day when I was desperate for a lesson for my adult intermediate class.
I had never heard of Suli Breaks before, but then there's a lot of thing I've never heard of, so that's not saying much. Apparently this Youtube video was a viral sensation a couple years back. [YOUTUBE LINK HERE].
Anyway, much as I would love to post my colleague's lesson, I won't steal his materials by posting them here.
Instead, I'll post what little I designed to supplement the lesson. Watching the video, I was reminded of Chomsky's comments on education, and so I showed a bit of Chomsky's talk as a lead-in to the Suli Breaks video. I think the little bit I designed on Chomsky's talk can also stand independently, so I'm posting it here as well.
Although Chomsky is famous for his academic-speak, this little segment was more or less accessible to my intermediate ESL students. They got the gist of it, and could debate it. Provided, that is, that I skip the beginning pre-amble, and jump right into the speech at the meat of it, beginning with "So, the educational system is supposed to train people..." (0:32 seconds, at the video linked to above.) And they usually needed to have the transcript in front of them to fully get it. (I played it the first time without the transcript just to see how much they could catch unassisted, but then the second listening was with the transcript.)
I then added some vocabulary matching activities as a follow-up. It's nothing too creative, but like all my lessons posted on this blog, this was done under time pressure of getting ready for an upcoming class. Anyways, for whatever little it may or may not be worth, here it is.
The PowerPoint presentation is on Google (drive, slides, pub), and embedded below . (None of the images are mine, and were all found using a Google Images search). The Transcript and vocabulary exercises and pasted below, and on Google (drive, docs, pub).
So,
the educational system is supposed to train people to be obedient, conformist,
not think too much, do what you’re told, stay passive, don’t cause any crisis
of democracy, don’t raise any questions, and so on. That’s basically what the system is about.
Even
the fact that the system has a lot of stupidity in it I think has a function. It means that people are filtered out for
obedience. If you can guarantee lots of
stupidity in the educational system, you know like stupid assignments and
things like that, you know that the only people who will make it through are
people like me, and like most of you, I guess, who are willing to do it no
matter how stupid it is; because, we want to go to the next step, you know.
So
you may know that this assignment is idiotic and the guy up there couldn’t
think his way out of a paper bag, but you’ll do it anyway because that’s the
way you get to the next class. And you
want to make it and so on and so forth.
Well
there are people who don’t do that, you know. There are people who say, “I’m not going to do
it. It’s too ridiculous.” You know. Those people are called “behavioral
problems.” Or something like that. They end up in the principal’s office or in
the streets or selling drugs or whatever, and all of this is a technique for
selection for obedience.
Vocabulary
1. and so on/forth ________
2. conform ________
3. conformist ________
4. filter something out ________
5. function ________
6. obedient ________
7. obey ________
8. passive ________
9. principal ________
10. principal’s office ________
11. ridiculous ________
12. way out of a paper bag ________
|
A. (noun) doing, or willing to do, what you
have been told to do by someone in authority
B. the place where naughty children are sent
to be punished by the principal
C. used after a list of things to show that
you could have added other similar things
D. an idiom used to describe something that
someone completely cannot do
E. the person in charge of a school or college
F. not reacting to what happens, or not acting
or taking part
G. to remove a particular substance from a
liquid or gas
H. someone who behaves or thinks like the
other people in a group and doesn't do anything unusual
I. (verb) to act according to what you have
been asked or ordered to do by someone in authority, or to behave according
to a rule, law, or instruction
J. to behave according to the usual standards
of behaviour that are expected by a group or society
K. the natural purpose (of something) or the
duty (of a person)
L. very silly
|
Example Sentences:
She plays a lot of tennis and squash and so on.
At our school, you were required to conform, and there was no place for originality.
She was very conformist
and dressed exactly like everyone else.
They use special equipment to filter
out the dust.
The function of the
veins is to carry blood to the heart.
I'm not quite sure what my function
is within the company.
A thermostat performs the function
of controlling temperature.
Students are expected to be quiet and obedient in the classroom.
an obedient dog
The soldiers refused to obey
orders.
to obey the rules of
international law
They attack people who are too weak or too passive to resist.
She was caught smoking and sent to see the principal.
The teacher sent the child straight to the principal’s office for punishment.
I've never heard anything so ridiculous.
a ridiculous suggestion
My boss is so clueless, he couldn't schedule his own way out of a paper bag.
Junior varsity couldn't play their way
out of a paper bag in comparison.
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