Societies

Introduction

In this theme we are looking at societies.

What are you going to do?
We’re going to look at what society actually means and how it affects us, in other words, why is it important to understand. Different societies have different belief systems and do things in different ways. These differences are not only from a geographical perspective but also through time.

We begin by reading about the Hadza, a hunter gather tribe that lives in Tanzania and how they live their lives as they would have done over 100,000 years ago.

Then we move on to read about how China is planning to ‘watch’ its citizens with a scheme that will impact every aspect of their lives.
If this is successful in China today, could the rest of the world implement it tomorrow?

We then read about how the choices you make in your teen years can affect the rest of your life,
or not? You are told that they are the most important decisions that you have to make, but are they?
And why has society developed in this way?
Finally, we look at groups and the importance that humans place on doing activities together
with like-minded people.

How about you?
What comes to mind when you hear the word 'society'?
You’re going to look at what society actually means and how it affects us, in other words,
why is it important to understand.
Different societies have different belief systems and do things in different ways.
These differences are not only from a geographical perspective but also through time.
So societies in the past were different to societies nowadays. Or weren't they?
This theme is about societies, past and present and your beliefs about societies.

Have fun!

Need to know

What do you need to know?
At the end of this theme, you should be able to talk about Societies with ease.
But you don't have to be able to do all this perfectly right away! If you take the following lessons you'll find out what you need to know!

Read the questions.
With a classmate, discuss these questions.

Choose from the following questions

How would you describe your society? What comes to mind when you hear the word society?
Are you proud of your society? Why / why not?
What kind of improvements would you like to see in your society?
Is society different for rich and poor, men and women, young and old? How?
What do you think, are the differences between society today and forty years ago?

Can do

In this theme you will focus on the following 'can do' statements.

Listening (B2):

I can understand in detail what is said in a conversation between two students doing the same task.
I can understand a video about 'Can you get smarter?' and can answer the questions.

Reading (C1)

I can rapidly grasp the content of an article about a government who monitors everything citizens do.
I can read quickly and understand the article 'If I ruled the world' and give paragraphs the correct heading. I also can grasp the main points.
I can understand in detail a text about people whose society is different to mine.
I can read an article about Mensa, dealing with the content and criticism and check my ideas.

Speaking (B2)

I can start, maintain and close simple face to face conversation on aspects 'society' includes.
I can interact with a degree of fluency in a conversation about which information governments (wants to) know about their citizens.
I can take an active part in a conversation or discussion about big tourism.
I can describe the attitude of the interviewer and give my own opinion about 'possessions'.
I can give a spoken presentation about a different society. I can do this with the 'wow' factor (impressing my audience).
I can give or seek personal views and opinions in a discussion with a classmate about 'great, average and small' people.

Writing (B2)

I can write clear, detailed information in an email in which I outline my plans and proposals to protect the Hadza, but also give tourists an insight into their lives.
I can write an email to the newspaper editor with my views on an article. I can give reasons in support of this point of view.
I can write a text with information and my personal point of view about Mensa.
I can write my CV in summary form.

To do

The theme Societies contains an introduction, four lessons and a finishing touch.
In the schedule below, you can see the titles of the sections and an estimate of the time required for each part.

Lesson	Title	Activity	Time (hours)*
Introduction	Introduction Need to know Can do To do		0,5 hour
Lesson 1	Tanzania	Speak about society. Read about a different society in Tanzania. Write a proposal to make changes you think are best in an email.	3-4 hours
Lesson 2	Digital eyes on citizens	Speak about the information governments know about you. Read about the digital eyes on citizens in China and write an email about it.	3-4 hours
Lesson 3	If I ruled the world	Watch a video about the most spoilt child in Britain. Read and speak about 'If I ruled the world. Grammar: future continuous	3-4 hours
Lesson 4	International organization	Read and speak about the need to belong to a group, like Mensa. Grammar: reported speech	2-3 hours
Finishing touch	Projects	You will give a presentation about a different society.	3 hours
	Oefenprogramma Engels'	You are going to practise with the 'Oefenprogramma Engels'
	Examentraining	You are going to prepare for exams: practise taking past versions.
	Evaluatie	You answer evaluation questions, what did you learn?
	Total		16 hours

*hour = lesuur. Eén lesuur komt ongeveer overeen met 2 SLU.

Lessons

Tanzania

Introduction

In this next lesson is Tanzania: hunter gatherers.

This lesson contains 5 steps and an evaluation.
Work them through step by step.

Step	Activity
	Introduction	Find out what you already know.
Step 1	Speaking	Tick topics about society and compare answers with a classmate. Share your ideas with a classmate about two items you have chosen. Listen to two parts of a conversation and answer questions.
Step 2	Listening	Listen to a conversation of two students about how to choose between different 'items'.
Step 3	Reading	Answer questions about topics. Read the text and answer questions. Discuss other questions with a classmate.
Step 4	Words	Put words in the correct group. Read the text of Step 2 and find the collocations. Complete sentences with the collocations found.
Step 5	Speaking	Discuss questions with a classmate about the Hadza people. Talk about advantages and disadvantages of big tourism.
Step 6	Task	Write an email in 200-250 words to "the wealthy American" about your plans and proposals. Read the tips.
	Evaluation	Reflecting on what you have learned.

Difficult words? Search these on Cambridge Dictionaries

Step 1 - Speaking

Let’s think about what society actually means.
Write down the topics that you think that ‘society’ includes.

air travel	buying and selling
bands, tribes, groups with a common interest	the environment
how a group of people eat, and what they eat	what people wear

Compare your answers with your partner, and give reasons for your answers.
Add one more aspect that society includes, and one aspect that society doesn’t include.

Look at the following items. Write down the items that you have.

clothes	phone	food
decor	sense of smell	laptop
passport	internet access	cosmetics

Imagine that you are allowed to keep only two of the above items.
Which two would you choose? Write down your items and reasons.
Share your ideas with your partner.

Now read this extract.

Given a list of things (including cosmetics, their car, their passport, their phone and their sense of smell) and told they could only save two, 53% of those aged 16-22 and 48% of those aged 23-30 would give up their own sense of smell if it meant they could keep an item of technology (most often their phone or laptop). We all know how important technology is to our people, but a willingness to sacrifice one of their human senses to keep it shows just how intrinsic it has become.

Perhaps it's not all that surprising when you consider that technology represents all the friends you could ever want, all the knowledge you will ever need, and all the entertainment you could desire.
For your people, technology is more than a useful tool or an enabler. It is truly their fifth sense.

Source: https://www.scribd.com/doc

Discuss the next question.

Why do you think older people might be shocked at this report?

Answer

Step 2 - Listening

Society has also to do with thinking about your own beliefs and values about possession and ownership.
In this step you are going to listen to a conversation between two students in two parts.

Now listen to Part 1

In a conversation two students doing the same task.

Which two items do they choose, and why?

Listen to the conversation and answer this question.

Listen to Part 2 of the conversation.

After listening you are going to answer these questions:

Which generation groups are mentioned?
What reason do they give for Baby boomers choosing food and clothes?
Another characteristic of modern times is given: what is it?

Now read this extract of the text Technology as a fifth sense.

Technology as a Fifth Sense

Given a list of things (including cosmetics, their car, their passport, their phone and their sense of smell) and told they could only save two, 53% of those aged 16–22 and 48% of those aged 23–30 would give up their own sense of smell if it meant they could keep an item of technology (most often their phone or laptop).

We all know how important technology is to young people, but a willingness to sacrifice one of their human senses to keep it shows just how intrinsic it has become. Perhaps it’s not all that surprising when you consider that technology represents all the friends you could ever want, all the knowledge you will ever need, and all the entertainment you could desire. For young people, technology is more than a useful tool or an enabler. It is truly their fifth sense.

Step 3 - Reading

You are going to read a text about people whose society is different to yours.
They are 'The Hadza' and they live in Tanzania.

Before you read the article, look at the following topics.

Which words apply to your society?
Do you know anything about The Hadza? Which words apply to their society?

	Your society	The Hadza
nomadic
hunter gatherers
sustainable agricultural practices
hunger
tourism
happiness

Read the article.

Mike Carter August 22, 2015

Mwapo started whistling: a sweet, piercing melody that rose and fell. From somewhere in the distance came a second whistler, the tune the same. Mwapo touched his ear with his finger, pointed towards a line of trees.

Nearby, on a dead tree stump, sat an angry-looking little bird. As we approached, it started whistling. Here was our duettist. “Tik’iliko,” said Mwapo. The bird took flight. We followed, the bird and Mwapo whistling constantly to each other.

Eventually we came to an enormous baobab tree. Mwapo pointed up. There, on a branch, sat the tik’iliko, or honeyguide bird. Next to it, barely visible to the human eye, was the entrance to an African honeybee nest. Mwapo looked happy. Like all Hadza people, he loves honey, and honeyguides love the wax and larvae. Without the bird, man can’t find the nests; without man, the bird can’t get into them. A few days earlier, I could barely have conceived of this symbiotic miracle. But even a short time spent with the remarkable Hadza, Africa’s last true hunter-gatherers, had taught me that their life is one long miracle.

My guide on this journey was Daudi Peterson, 64, US-born but raised in Tanzania. Daudi first met the Hadza when he was 10 years old and a life-long love affair was born. Since 1994, he has been taking anthropologists and tourists to meet them, keeping numbers to between 200-300 a year, split between the Hadza’s various camps. “It is structured tourism, but not staged,” he said. “We simply follow them around in their daily lives and observe. Cultural dignity is key.”

The nomadic Hadza now number around 1,300 people, although of these only 200-300 still live exclusively as hunter-gatherers. Their group structures are egalitarian, without hierarchies. Their “crops” are earth’s natural offerings, foraged; their “livestock” wild animals. “At a time when developed nations are consuming ever more resources,” Daudi said, “what can we relearn about sustainability from the past? These people live within the limits of the earth, and they take care of the less fortunate.”

Daudi explained that because the earth has always provided the Hadza with abundant food found naturally, they’ve never known the starvation that comes with crop and cattle failure. It was arguably the development of agriculture, he continued, with its fragility; surplus mentality that created settled towns and cities and the inevitable hierarchies and conflicts over resources. “The Hadza share absolutely everything. The concept of ownership is unknown. That is a huge part of their culture,” he said. “Because there is always enough, there is no need to worry about tomorrow. This is a community where everybody’s opinion is equal.”

A group of women were walking out of camp and beckoned us to join them. After a while, some started gathering berries, others the fallen fruit of the baobab (containing six times as much vitamin C as oranges), which they pound with rocks to make flour for porridge. Some stopped by a tree and pointed to a vine going into the ground, the sign of the tubers growing underground that are a staple of the Hadza diet. With sharpened sticks called ts’apale they tapped the earth to locate the tubers and then dug deep until they had amassed a pile. Most animals can’t get to these tubers so they’re always available, and the Hadza only ever take the top 10 per cent so they can grow back. Once an area is exhausted, it is left to regenerate as the camp moves on.

But for a people whose very survival has always relied on symbiosis, it is a relatively new and mutually beneficial relationship — with tourism — that just might prove wrong the pessimistic commentators who predict that the Hadza are ultimately doomed. The fees from visitors ($51 per person per night as a bed tax, $10 a day for each Hadza guide) go into a Hadza bank account. This fund, managed collectively, helps pay for healthcare and for some children to go to boarding schools. A few of these kids have gone on to university, after which they have returned better equipped to fight for Hadza rights. In 2011, perhaps partly in recognition of the Hadza’s value to tourism and their newfound campaigning strengths, the Tanzanian government granted them three strips of protected land, amounting to 23,305 hectares. It is a mere 10 per cent of their original homeland, and neighbouring tribes still encroach, but in a situation that remains on a knife-edge, it is a glimmer of hope.

“It was the Hadza who suggested tourism,” Daudi says. “We said no, it would be too messy, that people would want to change them. But they are too strong to be changed.” High above were the straight vapour trails of an aircraft and, at the tip, the tiny shape of a plane, like an arrowhead on a shaft. I thought of those people up there, thrusting through space, impatient to arrive somewhere else. I looked at Mwapo and, suddenly fearful for the future of the Hadza and the joyful way of life I had glimpsed, I started to cry.

Source: https://www.ft.com/content/

Do the exercises.

Step 4 - Words

Do the exercises.

Step 5 - Speaking

Read and answer these questions with your partner.

Imagine you are the guide, Daudi. You have received a request from some wealthy Americans who want to learn more about the Hadza. They want to see all aspects of the Hadza, and that might mean ‘staging’ some activities. You know that once this happens, other groups will want to come along. On the other hand, they are willing to pay a lot of money that would help the Hadza with education and health.

What do you do?

Talk to your partner about the advantages and disadvantages of big tourism.
How can you protect the Hadza, and yet still give the tourists an insight into their lives?

Step 6 - Task

In step 5 you have spoken about how can you protect the Hadza, and yet still give the tourists (wealthy Americans) an insight into their lives.

You are going to write an email to the wealthy American in which you outline your plans and proposals.

First read how to write a proposal.

Proposal
A proposal begins by describing the situation. In a proposal you make some suggestions and you have to persuade whoever is reading the proposal to make the changes you think are best.

Here are some points to help you.

Start by stating the purpose of the proposal.
Say how you think it could be better.
Try to convince the reader you are right.
Use an impersonal, semi-formal style.
You should use headings, and have an intro and conclusion.
Use clear layout with headings.
Express opinions and make recommendations in the last section of your proposal.
Include a final sentence summarizing your opinion.

Write 200-250 words.

Evaluation

Fill in the schedule and answer the questions below.

	Activity	Needs improvement	Satisfactory, good	Excellent
Step 1 - Speaking	I can speak about 'society'.
Step 2 - Listening	I can listen to a conversation of two students about how to choose between different 'items'.
Step 3 - Reading	I can read a text about people whose society is different to mine.
Step 4 - Words	I can use and understand the words.
Step 5 - Speaking	I can have a discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of big tourism.
Step 6 - Task	I can write an email about my plans and proposals how wealthy tourists can visit the Hadza.

What have you learned in this lesson?
Answer the following questions:

What was the easiest part of this lesson?
What was the most interesting part?
What was the most difficult part?
What was new to you in this lesson?
What do you have to ask your teacher?