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subject to review, alteration or abandonment in classroom practice.
Anyone is welcome to use this stuff, but copyright remains with
Thor May. Feedback, positive or negative, is very welcome.ESL materials & ideas developed in Korea
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Gossip - Teaching Notes
1. The importance of gossip: Gossip is part of the casual chatter that most people engage in. An important property of gossip is that it informally passes on information about other people or events. The information may be accurate or scurrilous. However, much which comes to pass later in "formal life" is actually a result of information, opinions and ideas passed on through gossip. It is therefore an extremely powerful medium. There are important differences between cultures (and even between workplaces) in the role and nature of gossip. That is, gossip has its own rules.
2. Classroom gossip practice: Because of the importance of gossip, and the cultural variations, it is quite valuable to practice some gossip-like activities in language classrooms. Teachers should think carefully about the "rules of gossip" before they use it as a teaching medium. Many of the skills acquired in "learning to gossip" can actually be applied later for more systematic needs, such as helping to prepare students for making incident reports at work.
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