Engelsk for videregående

We are happy to welcome you to Gyldendalhuset, and our English seminar for teachers in VGS.

Where: Gyldendalhuset, Oslo
When: 4 May
What: Free seminar for English teachers in VGS

Is Oslo a long journey away? We sponsor one night in a hotel if you must travel more than two hours. You pay only 500 NKR.

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Program

11.30 – 12.15 Lunch and registration
12.15 – 13:00 Global English – curse or blessing? Kristin Bech
13.15 – 14.00 Gyldendals digitale læremidler i 2020 Kristian Aa and Jørgen Walderhaug Jensen
14.15 – 16.00 London: Europe’s Immigrant Megacity Ben Judah and Espen Aas

London: Europe’s Immigrant Megacity
Ben Judah

Ben Judah is a journalist and author, specializing in portraits and reportage. His first book Fragile Empire (2013) was a study of Russia and Vladimir Putin. His second This Is London (2016) was a Sunday Times Top 50 bestseller and longlisted for the Ballie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction. He was a 2016 Forbes 30 under 30 in European journalism.

Ben writes frequently for the FT Weekend and the Sunday Times Magazine, for whom he has recently interviewed both Emmanuel Macron and Imran Khan. He has also made films for Vice.com and BBC Newsnight. Now based in Paris, he was also Highly Commended for the British Press Awards Feature Writer of the Year in 2015.

Global English – curse or blessing?
Kristin Bech

Great Britain has given three things of major importance to the world. One of them is the English language, which is now spoken by about 1.5 billion people globally. It belongs to many, it has an unusual and fascinating history, and it can therefore be taught from several different perspectives. At the core is the historical perspective. Through political and cultural developments, English went from being the tongue of a small island to becoming a global language of power. Another perspective is the linguistic one: students should be able to recognize and describe some similarities and differences between varieties of English. Why are Australian and South African English in many ways similar? Why is the Indian accent so easily recognizable? A third perspective which might lead to lively discussion in the classroom is that of language attitudes – how do speakers ‘rate’ different accents of English? Should everyone aim for a standard British or American accent? Or could it be that a Norwegian may actually take pride in a Norwegian accent?  In this talk Bech will briefly outline these perspectives, hopefully providing some inspiration for the classroom. And together we might speculate about the future of English…

Kristin Bech is Associate Professor of English Language at the University of Oslo. She originally planned to teach English and French in secondary school, but she got caught up in research at the university. Fortunately she gets to teach there as well. She is the author of the book ‘Fra englisc til English: Et språk blir til’ (2016).

Gyldendals digitale læremidler i 2020
Vi i Gyldendal vil være din partner for læring. Derfor bygger vi nå, i samspill med våre over 700.000 brukere, et studio hvor alle våre digitale læremidler – i alle fag og på alle trinn – samles. Skolestudio skal gi både lærer og elev egne arbeidsrom som tilrettelegger for en enklere og mer fleksibel arbeidsflyt. En arbeidsflyt som bidrar til økt læringsutbytte og mestring for alle elever.

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In December, we find our cynical selves, usually alert to the danger of commercial manipulation, wiping away an unexpected tear while watching a… television advert. They hit on key elements of the human psyche, triggering strong emotions like joy, sadness, excitement or endearment. A company’s use of effective visual layout in advertisements can greatly add to the viewer’s evaluation of it. Emotion is also a great shortcut to virality. The adverts become the talk of the town. Consequently, the credibility of the company increases and we are more likely to buy their products.

Study these adverts from two popular British household names with your students.

1. Ask your students about their favourite adverts? Which ones are they? Why?
2. Watch the films together.

Marks and Spencer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfaSxIkLslE (1:35)

John Lewis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jw1Y-zhQURU (2:10)

3. How do these adverts play on viewers’ emotions?

Making use of the rhetorical mode of pathos means triggering the feelings of your audience.

• Use vivid language
• Tell a story
• Use anologies and metaphors
• Show pictures
• Use humour
• Be confident
• Vary the tone of your voice
• Use music and images to evoke feelings

4. Which of the Christmas adverts is your favourite? Why?

Time: 30 minutes

1. Wish to see more? The Telegraph, amongst others, has ranked the best Christmas ads of all time:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/0/the-10-best-christmas-adverts-of-all-time/

Invite your students to discuss aspects of gender inequality, based on Binah Shah’s text Fix the Men! from E2.

Download the worksheet here

Teaching suggestions

Relevant competency aims:

• understand, elaborate on and discuss lengthy discourses on general and specialized subjects
• elaborate on and discuss a number of international and global challenges

Approximate use of time: 25-30 minutes, depending on class size.

Required reading: Binah Shah’s text “Want to end sexual violence against women? Fix the men!” (page 47-48 in E2).

Possible follow-up activities: The arguments gathered in the class discussion might serve as a starting point for a discussion on other aspects of gender inequality as found in E2, as well as a broader discussion on the topic of #metoo. The groups might be invited to invent their own strategies for combatting gender inequality and the related problems presented in the midst/in the wake of #metoo.

Hanna Kvalem Oltedal, Sørumsand VGS

Tax avoidance – a multibillion-dollar industry

Since the late 1980s, several multinational companies have been criticized for avoiding taxes by jumping through different European tax loopholes. A system called the “double Irish”, for instance, has made this possible. This is how Apple has used and enjoyed the
system:

Through a scheme literally called the “double Irish”,
a company can create two Irish subsidiary companies,
and the first Irish company (usually in the Cayman
Islands) licenses everything to a second Irish
company, the upshot being that the mother ship
is not considered a tax resident anywhere thanks
to differences between the US and Irish definitions
of residence. The result of all this is that Apple had
a “head office” in Ireland with no premises, no employees
and no real activities. But because they had
pulled the double Irish, the European commission
has ruled, Apple deprived the EU of $14.5bn over
the last 10 years.
                       -Mike Daisey, The Guardian, 7 September, 2016

Tax evasion is illegal. It means not paying, or underpaying, taxes. It has been estimated that about 5.1 per cent of annual world GDP is lost to tax evasion. Tax avoidance is the use of legal methods to pay as little tax as possible. Although a given tax avoidance
scheme could be strictly legal, it is usually in contradiction with the intent of the law. In this video you can learn more about tax avoidance (YouTube).

Instead of studying the technicalities of European tax laws, we would like you to focus on the effects of the loopholes. In groups of 3–4, choose either Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft or Starbucks as your case study.

• How much has the company paid in corporation tax
in EU countries in recent years?
• How is the company’s tax-avoidance case
commented on in the media?
• In your own opinion: How fair is the system? What
would be a reasonable level of corporate tax for
“your” company? Make sure you support your
claims with concrete evidence based on reputable
sources.

Create a collaborative document, for instance in Google Docs, and write a few paragraphs where you present your findings and views.

This task is taken from E2 International English. You can read more about E2 here.