Alquin magazine It's no longer just about me part 1

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• vmbo t
• Leerjaar 4

Alquin magazine lesson 1

It's no longer just about me

Over to you

A Vocabulary

Study the vocabulary (only part A)on page 2 and 3 of your workbook for 3 minutes

Let's discuss some words

PUFFY 

TO CHUCK 

FUSSING

ENCOURAGEMENT

Vocabulary in context

Instructions

- Form groups of three/four people

- You will all be given a different word/phrase to study and try to guess the meaning of

- Discuss the words/phrases among your group and see if you all agree on what it means

- Write a sentence explaining the meaning of each word/phrase

C. Facts

Exercise on the smartboard

How to solve these exercises?? 

Over to you

C Facts

Finish the rest of exercise A 

C. Facts part b

Instructions

- Form couples of two persons

- The groups will all be given a different question to discuss

- Talk to each other about the question given to you

- One of you is spokesperson for the group when answering the question

IMAGINE THAT SOMEONE OF YOUR OWN AGE, WHO'S STILL AT SCHOOL, FALLS PREGNANT AND DECIDES TO KEEP THE BABY

Let's read the text together

Over to you

E. Getting to know the text

a. Answer questions 1,2,3 and 4 on your own and in silence. Write down your answers in full sentences

Answers

1. The difficulties mentioned by Georgina have to do with the body. She mentions having pain in her back, feeling nauseous, a shortage of sleep and having a hard time eating and breathing (lines 1-13).

2. Other people have been staring, whispering and giving her disgusted looks (lines 39-40).

3. One of the following options: Georgina doesn’t worry about tests or studying like other teens. She is not studying maths (lines 63-65), but everything that has to do with babies (lines 73-76). She worries about labour, because it is said to be so painful (lines 68-73). She now has to think about everything that she eats, and not because she doesn’t want to gain weight (line 65-67), but because there are all kinds of food that could be dangerous for the baby (lines 76-81).

4. Mason is Georgina’s (yet to be born) son (lines 105-108).

E. Getting to know the text

b. Talk to each other (in groups of 2) about the following questions:

1. What do you think of this article about Georgina?

2. Was there anything in the article that you found surprising? If so, what was it?

3. Think of one reason why Georgina wrote down her story and sent it to Leesa Smith of the Daily Mail 

Vocab game 

Instructions

- I will form two equal groups and name them group A and group B

- Group A come over to me to collect a phrase and then move over to the back of the class and form a line. Keep your phrase to yourself and don't say it out loud just yet

- Group B then come over to me to collect a word and form a line at the front of the class

-  Each one of you tries to find the matching person by listening to the people at the back saying their phrase out loud. 

- When you've found 'your match' move over to the back, take your match with you and stand next to each other somewhere in the classroom 

For example: 

Person A: "to give someone no choice" 

Person B: "to force" 

Recap

Last week we read the text. Let's have a short recap of this text. What was it about? 

Over to you

G. In depth

Work in pairs/groups of three. Read the text carefully (if needed) and answer the questions below. Write down your answers in FULL SENTENCES 

Example: 

1. Think of two reasons why Georgina starts the text the way she does in the first paragraph

ANSWER:

Georgina starts the text the way she does because........

Answers

See active inspire for possible answers 

H. Watching and listening

You're going to watch teenage mom Katie interview her parents about their opinion on her teenage pregnancy. Katie and Ben are the parents of two daughters. You're going to watch the interview in two parts. 

BEFORE WATCHING: 

Read through questions 1 -15 and guess the right answers. Sometimes more than 1 answer is correct (two parents) 

Interview with the (grand)parents part 1 

Answers

1. a. both

2. c. Yes, absolutely, it would be great to do boys-things with them.

3. a. No, because you should only go to college if you’ve got a goal that you want to achieve. (d)

     c. Not really, but it would have been better for a more certain future. (m)

4. b. Not at all, you do it all on your own.

5. b. No, it’s not something we care about.

6. c. Yes, we didn’t know that you were trying for another baby.

7.  b. After the initial surprise, I am truly ecstatic how it all worked out.

8.  d. We don’t have a problem with you being on social media, but it’s not really our thing.

Answers

9. b. No, you both have the right mentality to do this. (d)

    d. Yes and no, but I was not really worried. (m)

10. a. It’s great and completely the right decision. (m)

      c. It’s valuable to pursue other things, so it’s good that he has this opportunity. (d)

11.  c. No, in that case we would have adopted the baby ourselves.

12.  c. Yes, although we were a bit worried about the spelling.

13.  b. We were quite a bit older than you are.

14.  a. Doing what your passion was, although I didn’t know what that was at that time.

15.  a. One daughter looks like Katie, the other looks like Ben.

        d. Winston Churchill

H. Watching and listening

Go through the questions in the second part of the interview 

DURING WATCHING part one: 

Watch the interview without sound. Pay attention to the questions being asked and answered. What could the answers be? 

DURING WATCHING part two:

Watch again with sound on and check your answers

Interview with the (grand)parents part 2 

Answers

1. Yes, they enjoy being young grandparents.

2. They really care about Ben. They admire how he has embraced being a dad and works so hard. The father doesn’t like the name Ben though.

3. They think that it doesn’t really matter, a future boy or a future girl would both be fine. The mother mentions that the boy would look exactly like Ben.

4. The mother never questioned Katie being a good mom. The father had never given it much

thought, but once the first baby was born, he saw immediately how calm and confident Katie was as a mother.

5. Both parents are very proud of Katie.

K. In depth (multiple choice)

Work alone and in silence and answers the 8 multiple choice questions. Do it like this: 

1. Answer (A,B,C,D) 

I know this is the right answer because...... (fill in the rest of the sentence)

Give information on where you've found it in the text. Preferably highlight the part of the text that contains the answer. 

Also mention why the other answers are not right (or not completely right)

If you are in doubt about a question also mention the other answer and why you are not sure 

Answers

1. d. The writer talks about not fitting into her clothes anymore and having to watch what she eats, but that doesn’t mean she’s overweight: she is pregnant, and not necessarily too heavy.

Not a. This is clearly true: you can read about her being pregnant (line 5), her having to be

responsible for someone else besides herself (lines 18-19) and about how certain foods may

put her child’s life in danger (line 21-22).  

Not b. The writer is a teenager: you can work this out from the first lines where she says she

wishes she’d see a normal teen’s body in the mirror. This suggests that she sees a teen in

the mirror, but not a normal teen’s body. She also says this in line 18, where she wishes

she were like all other 15-year-olds, and it becomes clear from her description of life as a

school girl in lines 23-31. 

Not c. She says in lines 23-31 how she misses being in school, so she has clearly left school.

Answers

2. a. The decision to ‘grow up too quickly’ led to her ending up pregnant, and she says that ‘everybody was doing it’

so it’s probably about having (unsafe) sex.

Not b. Getting into a (normal teenage) relationship doesn’t necessarily mean you have to ‘grow up’ very quickly.

Not c. The remark ‘I thought it was okay because everybody else was doing it’ isn’t very likely to refer to a decision about keeping the baby or not; not everybody is keeping babies. Moreover, the whole matter of keeping the baby or not isn’t even mentioned in this article. 

Not d. This might have been a decision the writer took. However, the words ‘everybody was doing it’ suggest that she is actually talking about having sex, which resulted in her becoming pregnant.

Answers

3 b. The writer describes here the judgement and criticism teen mums come across: she says that people stare

at her and gossip about her, criticise her choices and have all sorts of negative ideas about her life as a mum.

Not a. The writer doesn’t necessarily think she will be stacking shelves in the future, nor does she think that she’ll be a bad mum: she just describes how other people have reacted to her being pregnant.

Not c. These aren’t imagined reactions: she clearly states that she ‘got used’ to people reacting in a shocked or disgusted way.

Not d. She doesn’t give any advice on how to deal with that negative attitude: she just says that she’s got used to it, but that it’s still no fun and it’s not helpful either.

Answers

4 d. She explains her words in lines 60-85. She explains that all of a sudden, life isn’t just about her anymore. Where usually teenagers are busy dealing with themselves and their own worries, she all of a sudden has to deal with the responsibility of a baby and all the consequences that come with becoming pregnant. Her body is no longer her own and the things she now

has to learn and deal with are because of, about and for the baby. She says that this growing up happens automatically: ‘it’s a natural instinct’.

Not a. She doesn’t suggest that society forced her to grow up: she makes clear that it’s just something that happens when you find out you’re pregnant. (Or at least that’s what happened to her.)

Not b. This may be the case, but the writer doesn’t mention anything about being financially independent, so it’s not likely she meant this when talking about ‘growing up’.

Not c. She doesn’t suggest that she dislikes teenage behaviour now: she just can’t behave like a real teenager anymore because she has her baby to think about

Answers

5. b. In these paragraphs the writer explains the first line of the paragraph: ‘Being a teen mum, you are still a teen but you’re forced to grow up’. She makes clear that her new life is very different from her old life. She draws parallels with a regular teen’s life to show the contrast between them and to show it’s not just about her and her own future anymore: she is still anxious, but not about tests, but about giving birth. She is still frantically reading books, but not school textbooks, but books about life with a newborn. She is still attending classes, but not in maths or geography, but to prepare her for giving birth. She is still carefully watching what she eats, but not to fit into a nice party dress, but to make sure the baby gets what he needs. So, in a way her life

is not that different, but all the things she does now are with a completely different goal.  

Not a. She actually says that she ‘should be’ worrying about and dealing with very different things than the ones she is dealing with now, because those things belong to an adult, a grown-up. Teenagers should be worrying about teenage things, because those worries belong to teenagers and the phase they are in. 

Answers

Not c. She doesn’t say that she doesn’t mind the way her life has changed: she just makes clear here how it changed.

Not d. She makes clear that she is actually not a real teenage girl anymore, since her whole mindset has changed. She doesn’t do teenage girl things anymore, since her whole life is now focussed on becoming a mum and being responsible. She is ‘still a teen’ (line 60) in age, but a more grown-up one.

Answers

6. c. The ‘staying strong’ refers to the not giving up that she refers to in line 86. Here she says that it would be easier to just give up, but that’s not an option, so you need to keep going. She makes clear that you can’t give up, because your baby needs you and you can’t let the bullies get you down.

Not a. It’s not about literally staying or being strong: it’s about not giving up mentally.

Not b. She doesn’t say that she feels good or happy about her future and her life now: just that it is what it is, and she has to deal with it for her baby.

Not d. It’s not about proving people wrong here: it’s about dealing with the criticism and knowing you are there for your baby. She says you’re already successful if you manage to keep going.

Answers

7. c. In this part of the article, you can read that even though she misses her old life, she has accepted the way her life is right now, and she is determined to be a good mum for her baby. So, she has accepted her new role even though she sometimes misses being a teenage girl.

Not a. She has accepted her new life: she doesn’t grumble and complain, at least not in these lines. She stresses here in these paragraphs that she is looking forward to holding her son, and that she is planning on doing her best to take care of him.

Not b. She more than tolerates it: she has accepted it and is planning on taking full responsibility for the baby and is looking forward to meeting him.

Not d. There is nothing in the text to suggest that she doesn’t understand what her life is going to be like: she seems to look forward to her life as a mum with confidence.

Answers

8. d. The writer doesn’t select one group only: she speaks to all people who gossip or insult or give meaningful looks at teenage mums and asks them to think again and show some support.

Not a. She addresses teenage mums in lines 132- 140, but in lines 121-132, she criticises other people, people who think it’s necessary to remind teenage mums of the mistakes they have made and how their life will be affected.

Not b. She doesn’t suggest that it’s just older people who criticise her: the ‘you’ in line 121 can be anyone who feels they need to remind teenage mums of what they are missing.

Not c. She doesn’t suggest that it’s just her peers who criticise her, or any other specific age group. She just wishes to say here that girls who get pregnant as teens know very well what they’re missing and that their lives will never be the same again, so there’s no need to remind them.