8/05/2011

To Photoshop or not to Photoshop...that is the question

Level: Intermediate + (Second video might be more for advanced students, or intermediate students with lots of help!!)
Age: Teens/ Adults


BEFORE YOU WATCH


  • Look at the cartoon. What message is it trying to convey concerning the use of photoshop? 
  • Say if you agree, disagree or somewhat agree with the following statements. Account for your answer.

- Photoshopped images are “digital art” in the sense that they are “constructed”.

- There´s nothing wrong with altering images in magazines/ billboards.

-  It is unethical to alter images to sell products.

- Advertisers sell “fantasy” because that’s what people want.

- Enhancing people’s looks through photoshop is cheating.

- Enhancing your look by wearing make-up, false eye-lashes, hair extensions  or even having - plastic surgery is cheating.  

- Images of perfect bodies have an impact on women’s self-esteem.

- Being bombarded with images of perfect bodies makes young people too body-conscious.

- Images of perfect bodies alter people’s conception of what physical beauty is and therefore promote eating disorders.

- Magazines should let readers know if images have been retouched.

- Image retouching or airbrushing should be banned in fashion magazines.



Work on Language

Collocations


Join with arrows

ADJ + NOUN

  1. Eating                         a. line
  2. Misleading                  b. people
  3. Fine                            c. disorders
  4. Body-conscious         d. critic
  5. Negative                    e. advertising
  6. Outspoken                  f. impact

VERB + NOUN

  1. Ban                            a. somebody’s image/ a product
  2. Enhance                    b. a complaint
  3. Censor                      c. a law
  4. Attain                         d. airbrushing/ the use of photoshop/ an ad
  5. Pass                          e. perfection/ a goal
  6. Take                           f. media/ a website
  7. Issue                          g. measures

Once you’ve matched the words with their collocations say how they may connect to the videos we’re about to watch.

WATCH VIDEO 1
 
Airbrushed ads banned in Britain (CBS news)


A. Watch the video and complete the mind map below.



B. Share your findings in a small group and then report what you've found.


AFTER YOU WATCH

C. Fill in the blanks with the vocabulary in the box.

uproar                    complaint                    watchdog           press release
outspoken             enhancement                  banned                 argue               whatever                     draw


1.      Britain's Advertising Standards Authority has _____________an ad featuring model Christy Turlington because of excessive airbrushing.
2.      The advertising _______________also banned an ad featuring actress Julia Roberts for the same reason.
3.      Britain's Advertising Standards Council has ruled that _______________the “before” L’Oreal’s make-up could never deliver and “after” like this.
4.      The move after Liberal Democrat MP Joe Swinson issued a ______________that the images were digitally manipulated and were "not representative of the results the product could achieve."
5.      Airbrushing and _______________is key to advertising. Every photo, especially for fashion and cosmetics is retouched somehow.
6.      Kate Winslet’s cover back in 2003 caused an______________.
7.      Kate Winslet has long been an ______________critic of unrealistic public images of women.
8.       The issue for Advertising watchdogs is where to _____________the line.
9.      Advertisers _____________ that they sell what people want.
10.  L’Oreal’s ________________defended the company by saying the lines in their ad where clearly visible.

WATCH VIDEO 2

Sex, Lies and photoshop (The New York Times)


Link: http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/03/09/opinion/1194838469575/op-ed-sex-lies-and-photoshop.html

  • Watch the video and say if the following statements are True or False.

1. In France, public health officials and psychiatrists have been meeting to try to pass laws to ban retouched images in magazines.
2. According to Ken Harris, a Photo retoucher, every single picture has been worked on.
3. As far as Ken Harris is concerned, there’s nothing wrong with photo-shopped images.
4. Domenic Demasi, another Photo Retoucher, had to choose one of the four images he was given and retouch it for Lucky magazine.
5. Domenic Demasi is aware that the overuse of Photoshop is a world issue for people who grow up taking these images as their icons.
7. According to a 2002 New York Times article about body-conscious athletes, boys as young as 15 are "bulking up with steroids."
8. A University of Missouri study found out that looking at women's magazines for over 10 minutes had a negative impact on women's self-esteem.
9. It’s easy to tell whether a photo has been retouched.
10. The woman who’s doing the voice-over suggests including the retoucher's name in the credits.

7/13/2011

My Video Sessions: The Memory Pill

My Video Sessions: The Memory Pill: "Level: Intermediate/ Upper Intermediate Age: Teenagers/ Adults Links to online video: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=2940749n ..."

The Memory Pill


Level: Intermediate/ Upper Intermediate
Age: Teenagers/ Adults

Links to online video:


DISCUSS BEFORE YOU WATCH
  • Are there some things or times that you will never forget?
  • Are there some things or times that you wish you could forget?
  • Memories make the man. What do you make of this saying? Do you agree with it?
  • Those who forget the past will repeat it. What do you think this means?
  • If you could edit your memories, which ones would you erase and why? Which ones would  you make clearer and more vivid?
  • If you could take a drug to either remember or forget some things that have happened to you, would you take it?
WHILE YOU WATCH

Global viewing :

Watch the video and complete the mind-map. Then get together with another student and compare your notes. (you can watch in chunks and stop to do this after a short while)

Watching for details (optional activity to do in class or for homework)
Watch and answer (0:39’- 2:38’)
  1. Who is Beatriz Arguedas? Why is she experiencing psychological trauma?
  2. Who is Roger Pitman? What does he say about people with PTSD?
  3. What happened when Beatriz got to the emergency room?
  4. What is propranolol used for?
  5. How did Pitman think this drug would help Beatriz?
  6. What does Dr. Pitman’s study consist in?
  7. If Pitman were right, why would the results be so important?

Some surprising findings about memory (2:39’- 5:25’)

True of false?

1. The stress hormone adrenaline plays a role in the solidification of memories.
2. James McGaugh studies memory in rats.
  1. He’s found out that adrenaline enhances rats’ ability to forget.
  2. McGaugh speculates that the same thing happens in people.
  3. Mc Gaugh used propranolol in rats in order to stimulate adrenaline.

 Expand on the following ideas (5:25’- 8:13’)
1.  Roger Pitman read McGaugh's studies and a light bulb went on.
2.  Pitman started recruiting patients for a small pilot study.
3.  Kathleen Logue was knocked down in the middle of a busy Boston street by a bicyclist.
4. The President’s Council on Bioethics condemned the study in a report.
5. "A terrible act. Why should you have to live with it every day of your life?
6. David Magnus is somewhat skeptical about the use this drug might be given.

Watch and answer (8:14’- end’)
1.    What have scientists found out about the effect of propranolol on rats?
2.    Who is Alain Brunet? Why did she team up with Dr.Pitman?
3.    Who are Rita Magil and Louise O'Donnell-Jasmin?
4.    How has the drug worked out for them so far?
5.    What still needs to be done to test the efficacy of the drug?
6.    What’s the controversy brought about by this drug?
7.    Why will Dr. Pitman be receiving Army funding?
8.    Is the drug ready for general use?


FOCUS ON LANGUAGE


COLLOCATIONS
The following are collocations that appear in the news report. Join with arrows and write down examples related to the video.
Group #1

  1. Enhance/ weaken/ strengthen             a. suicide
  2. Commit                                          b. research
  3. Treat                                              c. a bad experience
  4. Enroll                                              d. your memory
  5. Suffer                                             e. patients/ a condition
  6. Do/ conduct/ carry out                      f. somebody with a condition
  7. Recruit                                            g. in an experimental study
  8. Prescribe                                         h. from PTSD
  9. Go through                                      i. patients for a study/ employees
  10. Diagnose                                          j. a drug

Group #2

  1. A Painful/ traumatic/ vivid/                a. effects
  2. A memory-enhancing                          b. fright
  3. High                                                  c. pain
  4. Stage                                                d. condition
  5. Side                                                  e. car accident
  6. A life-threatening                               f. sound
  7. A heart                                              g. street
  8. Intense/ acute/ great                          h. memory
  9. A crackling                                         i. pill 
  10. A busy                                               j. blood pressure/ speed

LINKERS

In some cases more than one linker might be possible.

THEREFORE                  HOWEVER                 THOUGH           FURTHERMORE                 DESPITE
  1. Louise thinks that after taking the drug, her traumatic memories have weakened. ____________, she feels better.
  2. Pitman speculates that_______________the pleasant movie, Louise may have been thinking about the rape when she took the propranolol, and that's why it worked.
  3. Many of us would pay top dollar for a pill that would enhance our ability to remember. _______________, we found a scientist who is far more excited about a pill that promises to do exactly the opposite.
  4. The patient who made the most dramatic recovery turned out to be  Louise, but there's a catch, because she was in a control group and, _______________wasn’t supposed to improve at all.
    5.  The studies are still in their early stages, so O'Donnell-Jasmin's apparent positive result isn't conclusive,_____________to her, it's absolutely real.

    PREPOSITIONS
by (x2)                        in                 away                  with               for                   under                 over (x2)              into         about            on                   down (x2)
 
  1. The idea of having a "memory pill" has some critics alarmed and some trauma victims filled _______________ hope. 
  2.    Dr. Roger Pitman has studied and treated patients with PTSD, _____________ 25 years.
  3. Patients with PTSD are so caugt up so much with this past event that it's constantly in their mind. They're living it _____________and_____________ as if it's happening again. And they just can't get involved ______________ real life.
  4. Pitman enrolled Beatriz _____________ an experimental study of a drug called propranolol. Pitman thought it might do something almost magical – trick Beatriz’s brain ______________ making a weaker memory of the event she had just experienced. 
  5. In the study, which is still ______________ way, half the subjects get propranolol; half get a placebo. 
  6. The solidification of memories depends ______________ the stress hormone adrenaline.
  7. The rat will swim around the edge for a long time, until eventually he ventures out and ___________chance bumps into the platform. The next day, he'll find the platform a little bit faster.
  8. Pitman figured he could block that cycle by giving trauma victims propranolol right ____________ ... before adrenaline could make the memories too strong.
  9.   Kathleen Logue is a paralegal who was  knocked ______________in the middle of a busy Boston street _____________ a bicyclist.
  10. The study was simple: Subjects came in and were asked to think _____________ and write _______________ every detail they could remember about their trauma.


EXPAND YOUR VOCABULARY: MEMORY
Answer the following questions. Try to work out the meaning of the words and expressions in bold. If possible find a suitable equivalent in your language.
1. Which of the following would you use to define your memory?
GOOD                   POOR            LONG-TERM         SHORT-TERM           VISUAL           FAILING
2. Do you find it easy to remember things by heart?
3. Can you recall people's names easily? 
4. Do usually make a mental note or do you need to keep a pocket diary or any kind of reminder in order to remember what you have to do?
5.  Do you agree with the saying "out of sight, out of mind"?
6. Do you ever find that some smells or tastes bring back/ evoke memories from the past?

7. Talk about a happy childhood memory.
8. Have you ever done anything to boost/ enhance your memory? What?
9. Can you provide examples of a catchy tune/ song/ name

10. Is there anybody or any place you consider unforgettable?

11. Is there anything you distinctly remember doing during your last holiday?

12. When was the last time you racked your brains to remember something?

13. When was the last time you had something on the tip of your tongue?

14. When was the last time you ran into someone you didn't know but whose face rang a bell?

15. When was the last time you had to refresh your memory?

Online quiz: REMEMBER or REMIND?


AFTER YOU WATCH
  • Go back to the mindmap and retell the news report using as much new vocabulary as possible. Then, write down a short summary in pairs including the new lexical items.


7/07/2011

How to make work-life balance work




Level: Intermediate +
Age: Adult 

Before you watch

Discuss the following questions

·         How easy is it for you to strike a balance between your work and your personal life?

·         Have you ever felt that you were neglecting your job or your family/ friends or yourself? If so, how did you solve it?

·         What can people do to address this issue?


This is some of the vocabulary that Nigel Mash uses. How do you think it might relate to his talk?

NEGLECT                      RUBBISH                             TURN 40                      THORNY ISSUE                           FLEXITIME                       BOUNDARIES                              MASK (v)
CAREER CHOICE                          DRESS-DOWN FRIDAY                A YEAR OFF                 
TURN your life AROUND                               FIND A MIDDLE WAY

While you watch

Watch the video and try to complete the mind-map below.


After you watch

Focus on collocations: Join with arrows

VERB+ NOUN

1.       Neglect                                             a. rubbish/ nonsense
2.       Address                                           b. boundaries
3.       Talk                                                   c. the truth
4.       Make                                                d. a quiet/ hectic life
5.       Face                                                 e. a (career) choice
6.       Turn                                                   f. a year off/ control/ responsibility FOR something
7.       Set                                                    g. the family/ your friends
8.       Lead                                                 h. an issue
9.       Keep/ be                                          i. fit
10.   Take                                                  j. 40

ADJ+ NOUN

        1. A thorny                                  a. leave
        2. Maternity/ paternity                b. issue
        3. Dress-down                           c. companies
        4. Well-intentioned                    d. sleep
        5. Step by step                          e. description
        6. Good night’s                          f. Fridays

Focus on phrasal verbs

Fill in the blanks with a phrasal verb from the box in a suitable tense and form. There’s one extra phrasal verb you do not need to use.

GET AWAY WITH               TURN AROUND                   TUCK IN               SORT OUT                
CALL UP                   PICK UP                         RUN OUT                    MESS AROUND

1     After turning 40, he decided to ____________his life ______________
2.     He found it quite easy to balance work and life when he didn't have any work, which didn’t help   
       much when money was _________________
3.   Commercial companies are inherently designed to get as much out of you they can __________
4.   My wife, who is somewhere in the audience today, ____________me_____________at the office and said, "Nigel, you need to ______________ our youngest son _____________," Harry "from school."
5.   We walked down to the local park, ________________________ on the swings, played some silly games.
6.    I then put him to bed, ___________him____________, gave him a kiss on his forehead and said, "Goodnight, mate," and walked out of his bedroom.

Focus on idiomatic expressions

Spot the following idiomatic expressions that Nigel uses and try to work out their meaning.

1.      So many people talk so much rubbish about work-life balance.
2.      Certain job and career choices are fundamentally incompatible with being meaningfully engaged on a day-to-day basis with a young family.
3.      It's my contention that going to work on Friday in jeans and T-shirt isn't really getting to the nub of the issue.
4.      It's up to us as individuals to take control and responsibility for the type of lives that we want to lead.
5.      It’s particularly important that you never put the quality of your life in the hands of a commercial corporation.
6.      Commercial companies are inherently designed to get as much out of you they can get away with. It's in their nature, it's in their DNA, it's what they do.
7.      "I'll have a life when I retire, when my kids have left home, when my wife has divorced me, my health is failing, I've got no mates or interests left." A day is too short, after I retire is too long. There's got to be a middle way.
8.      It's totally dominated by work. I work 10 hours a day, I commute two hours a day. All of my relationships have failed. There's nothing in my life apart from my work. So I've decided to get a grip and sort it out. So I joined a gym."

Follow up

With the aid of the mind-map, try to reconstruct Nigel’s talk using at least 2 verb + noun collocations, 2 adjective + noun collocations, 2 phrasal verbs and 2 idiomatic expressions.







SCRIPT
What I thought I would do is I would start with a simple request. I'd like all of you to pause for a moment, you wretched weaklings, and take stock of your miserable existence.
Now that was the advice that St. Benedict gave his rather startled followers in the Fifth century. It was the advice that I decided to follow myself when I turned 40. Up until that moment, I had been that classic corporate warrior -- I was eating too much, I was drinking too much, I was working too hard, and I was neglecting the family. And I decided that I would try and turn my life around. In particular, I decided I would try to address the thorny issue of work-life balance. So I stepped back from the workforce, and I spent a year at home with my wife and four young children. But all I learned about work-life balance from that year was that I found it quite easy to balance work and life when I didn't have any work. Not a very useful skill, especially when the money runs out.
So I went back to work, and I've spent these seven years since struggling with, studying and writing about work-life balance. And I have four observations I'd like to share with you today. The first is, if society's to make any progress on this issue, we need an honest debate. But the trouble is so many people talk so much rubbish about work-life balance. All the discussions about flexi-time or dress-down Fridays or paternity leave only serve to mask the core issue, which is that certain job and career choices are fundamentally incompatible with being meaningfully engaged on a day-to-day basis with a young family. Now the first step in solving any problem is acknowledging the reality of the situation you're in. And the reality of the society that we're in is there are thousands and thousands of people out there leading lives of quiet, screaming desperation, where they work long, hard hours at jobs they hate to enable them to buy things they don't need to impress people they don't like. It's my contention that going to work on Friday in jeans and T-shirt isn't really getting to the nub of the issue.
(Laughter)
The second observation I'd like to make is we need to face the truth that governments and corporations aren't going to solve this issue for us. We should stop looking outside; it's up to us as individuals to take control and responsibility for the type of lives that we want to lead. If you don't design your life, someone else will design it for you, and you may just not like their idea of balance. It's particularly important -- this isn't on the World Wide Web is it, I'm about to get fired -- it's particularly important that you never put the quality of your life in the hands of a commercial corporation. Now I'm not talking here just about the bad companies -- the abattoirs of the human soul as I call them. I'm talking about all companies. Because commercial companies are inherently designed to get as much out of you they can get away with. It's in their nature, it's in their DNA, it's what they do -- even the good, well-intentioned companies. On the one hand, putting child care facilities in the workplace is wonderful and enlightened. On the other hand, it's a nightmare; it just means you spend more time at the bloody office. We have to be responsible for setting and enforcing the boundaries that we want in our life.
The third observation is we have to be careful with the time frame that we choose upon which to judge our balance. Before I went back to work after my year at home, I sat down and I wrote out a detailed, step-by-step description of the ideal balanced day that I aspired to. And it went like this: Wake up well-rested after a good night's sleep. Have sex. Walk the dog. Have breakfast with my wife and children. Have sex again. (Laughter) Drive the kids to school on the way to the office. Do three hours work. Play sport with a friend at lunch time. Do another three hours work. Meet some mates in the pub for an early evening drink. Drive home for dinner with my wife and kids. Meditate for half an hour. Have sex. Walk the dog. Have sex again. Go to bed. How often do you think I have that day? We need to be realistic. You can't do it all in one day. We need to elongate the time frame upon which we judge the balance in our life, but we need to elongate it without falling into the trap of the "I'll have a life when I retire, when my kids have left home, when my wife has divorced me, my health is failing, I've got no mates or interests left." (Laughter) A day is too short, after I retire is too long. There's got to be a middle way.
A fourth observation: We need to approach balance in a balanced way. A friend came to see me last year -- and she doesn't mind me telling this story -- a friend came to see me last year and said, "Nigel, I've read your book. And I realize that my life is completely out of balance. It's totally dominated by work. I work 10 hours a day, I commute two hours a day. All of my relationships have failed. There's nothing in my life apart from my work. So I've decided to get a grip and sort it out. So I joined a gym." (Laughter) Now I don't mean to mock, but being a fit 10-hour a day office rat isn't more balanced, it's more fit. (Laughter) Lovely though physical exercise may be, there are other parts to life. There's the intellectual side, there's the emotional side, there's the spiritual side. And to be balanced, I believe we have to attend to all of those areas -- not just do 50 stomach crunches.
Now that can be daunting. Because people say, "Bloody hell mate, I haven't got time to get fit; you want me to go to church and call my mother." And I understand. I truly understand how that can be daunting. But an incident that happened a couple of years ago gave me a new perspective. My wife, who is somewhere in the audience today, called me up at the office and said, "Nigel, you need to pick our youngest son up," Harry "from school." Because she had to be somewhere else with the other three children for that evening. So I left work an hour early that afternoon and picked Harry up at the school gates. We walked down to the local park, messed around on the swings, played some silly games. I then walked him up the hill to the local cafe, and we shared pizza for tea, then walked down the hill to our home, and I gave him his bath and put him in his Batman pajamas. I then read him a chapter of Roald Dahl's "James and the Giant Peach." I then put him to bed, tucked him in, gave him a kiss on his forehead and said, "Goodnight, mate," and walked out of his bedroom. As I was walking out of his bedroom, he said, "Dad?" I went, "Yes, mate?" He went, "Dad, this has been the best day of my life, ever." I hadn't done anything, hadn't taken him to Disney World or bought him a Playstation.
Now my point is the small things matter. Being more balanced doesn't mean dramatic upheaval in your life. With the smallest investment in the right places, you can radically transform the quality of your relationships and the quality of your life. Moreover, I think, it can transform society. Because if enough people do it, we can change society's definition of success away from the moronically simplistic notion that the person with the most money when he dies wins, to a more thoughtful and balanced definition of what a life well-lived looks like. And that, I think, is an idea worth spreading.