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Humanising Language Teaching
Year 4; Issue 3; May 02
A September 11th Comparison- Passives Upper secondary and adult
by Mario Rinvolucri
Level: intermediate
Preparation: Copy the 18 sentences below so that you have enough for all the members of your class plus one or two. If you have a class of 20 cut the extra copy up into strips with one sentence on each strip. If you have a class of 40 students cut up two copies.
In class:
- If you have a class of 20 give out one sentence to each student. There will be
two pairs sharing one slip.
If you have a class of 40 divide them into two separate groups. Deal out one set of sentences to one group and one set to the other group.
- Tell each student to fully memorise his/ her sentence. Go round helping with
comprehension problems. Once they have learnt the sentences collect back all
the slips.
- Ask the students, within their groups of twenty, to move around and share all the
information they have.
Within each group of twenty ask them to form two separate standing circles, a US one and a Chilean one.
- Tell the students to sit down, work in pairs and try and write down as much of the information about their story that they can.
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| The Presidential Palace was attacked on a Tuesday | The Twin Towers were attacked on a Tuesday |
| The Presidential Palace in Santiago de Chile was stormed on Sept 11th, 1973 | The Twin Towers and the Pentagon were demolished on Sept 11th, 2001 |
| President Allende's Palace was attacked by war planes at 10.00 am , local time | The Twin Towers were attacked by airliners at 8.45 am, local time. |
| President Allende was shot at 2.30 pm by Pinochet's troops. | President Bush was kept in hiding by the US Secret Services. |
| Many people in Chile were deeply shocked by what they saw on their TV's | Many people in the USA were deeply shocked by what they saw on their TV's |
| More then 3000 people lost their lives following the 1973 coup d'etat in Chile | More than 3000 people lost their lives in the Twin Towers attack in 2001 |
| The coup in Chile was backed by the US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger | The destruction of the New York Towers was backed by Osama bin Laden |
| After the coup, hunger and despair were everywhere in Chile. | After the New York attack, hunger and despair were everywhere in Afghanistan |
Acknowledgement: this exercise is politically inspired by Chomsky and technically calqued on John Morgan's Parallels activity on P. 53 of Recipes for Tired Teachers, edited by Chris Sion , Addison Wesley, 1985. Morgan sets the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln and John Kennedy side by side.