That's English! - Module 8 - Unit 8: Politics

First of all remember that politics means the sciences connected to government and everything related to politicians; that is the word for the professionals dedicated to politics: politicians.

As usual, let's start with general questions about this topic:

• What qualities do you think a politician should have?
• Are you interested in politics? Why/why not? Give reasons for your answer
• Are you interested in what happens in the Parliament? And in your municipal government?
• Do you think politicians are accountable for what they do? Why/why not?
• Are you an active citizen? Have you ever been on a demostration? What for? What happened?

Activity 1

Go to p. 81 in your textbook and ask the questions of exercise 5 to your partner. Share your points of view trying to be as polite as possible.

Activity 2

Imagine you have to explain the British democracy to your mate (think about the 3 main parties in the UK and the Houses of Parliament using the text you've got at the textbook or click here). If you haven't read it before you can do it with the Spanish system: explain to a foreigner the Spanish political system.

Activity 3

This is a listening exercise about Switzerland and Swiss politics. Click here to do the exercise. Compare it with your country and find similarities and differences between them.

You can do the same with these other examples: click here and then here

Activity 4
One of the most important political issues discussed in the UK is about Brexit; here there is a link which shows you the history of this problem: click here (a bit long). This video is shorter: click here.

Grammar: reporting verbs

Although you've already seen that there are verbs followed by gerund and/or infinitive, when you work with reporting verbs you'll find many examples of this kind, as you could see on your textbook.

If you want to practise a bit more, go to these exercises but remember that a that-clause is possible as well:

• exercise 1     exercise 2     exercise 3    exercise 4  

For further practice of the grammar point of this lesson, here are there some exercises to practise with reporting verbs:   

• a bit more difficult: exercise 5  exercise 6   exercise 7