Critical Language Awareness: EU tells Britain: Get mums back to work
Pre-reading
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Do you recognise this text type? Is it like something you already read? What features of the
layout helped you to answer those questions?
What is your first impression of the text? What stands out?
Discuss the choice of image – how might it help to tell the story?
Before reading the detail, what you think this story is about?
Is this story about this country? How do you know?
Headline and sub headings – What you notice about the letters.
How do the headline and sub headings work together? Consider the lexical features - what
do they infer?
Who is the author?
Read text out loud
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Activity: this is an opportunity to model good reading and for leaners to practise in sections.
This can be a differentiated activity by selecting different degrees of difficult according to
the learners’ needs. After each section, you could stop and encourage learners to
summarise the themes.
What was it like to read that text? Hard? Easy? How does it compare to reading other
types of texts? What is like to read in columns?
Affective responses
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How does this story make you feel? Who do you sympathise with in the story? Why should
women stay at home to look after their children? In other countries, women are going out
to work. Why should it be different for women in the UK?
Read the parts of the text in reported speech. Model intonation and expression that might
be used. Which words would you stress and why?
Activity: Imagine you have been told that you have to go work full time. Write an email to
your friend to tell him/her how you feel.
Evaluative critical responses
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What is the significance of using a comparison table? What is it hoping to tell us?
What is the job of the author? What is his perspective? Is he just telling the story or does he
have an agenda? What is it? How do you know?
Who is favoured in this article?
Is there another point of view? If so, are both views given equal coverage?
The headline refers to ‘mums’. Now look very carefully at the table – what do you notice?
Does that change anything? What?
This article appears in the paper on 24.6.15. Now look at the table – what do you notice?
Does that change anything? What?
What can you say about men in this story?
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Activity: Ask learners to design some true or false questions for each other and ask them to
locate the ‘evidence’ in the text. Tutors can encourage more critical reading by designing
questions which are based on inference only.
Reflections on own experiences
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Have you had to care for someone? Did you feel guilty for being at work?
Did you want to look after someone but felt you couldn’t as you had to keep going to work?
Activity: Ask learners to talk about their experiences of reading newspapers. Ask which they
read. Ask how they read them: Skim? Scan? In detail? Ask if they start at the front page or
the back. Why? Ask if there are parts they never read. Why? Ask if it’s ever difficult to
navigate e.g. when articles are split across pages. Do learners read the news on mobiles or
tablets? What are the similarities? What are the differences?
Specific language features
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Use of upper case letters for headlines and key word ‘FURY’. What is the effect?
Word class – highlight some verbs: ‘erupted’, ‘urged’ and ‘hectoring’ – what is the effect of
their use? What other verbs could be used? Does that change the effect?
Word class – highlight some adjective: ‘chronic’ ‘lacklustre’ ‘glowing’ ‘unwanted’ – what is
the effect of their use? Replace with other adjectives. Does that change the effect?
Draw attention to reported speech and its punctuation. Model how this might sound when
read aloud.
What is meant by the term ‘social challenge’?
What does the term ‘Eurosceptic’ mean?
Why are the words “personal and family responsibilities” in speech marks? What effect
does it have?
Post-reading activities
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General discussion and reflection on the way in which language features contribute to the
meaning/purpose of the text.
Do you feel you understand this story now?
What new words and /or phrases do you now know?
Has your opinion on the matter changed?
Is there any more information you would like to know?
Activity: Write an article from a different perspective. Can you use some of the language
features you identified in this article? Peer check by asking a partner to read your article
and comment on it using some strategies used to analyse this article.