"Can the UK cope with the Omicron surge" - Guardian's podcast Today in Focus

5 February 2022

Lecturers
Students

International Relations
Journalism & multimedia
Medicine & Nursing

Autonomous learning
Classroom Context

English

English

C1
C2

Audio

Vocabulary
Grammar
Prosody

Listening
Writing

The resource is a podcast made by the Guardian and published on the newspaper website. The link takes you directly to the podcast. It is a bit long for the purpose of keeping the students engaged and not losing interest in what they are listening to. So, it should be divided into different sections according to the objectives of the class. For the purpose of the activity implemented in the class, only the first five minutes of the podcast were listened to. The podcast is pretty clear ad the sound is very good.

This resource was used in an English class of 10 students studying for the Master's in translation. As a way to build terminological databases, in order to improve students’ lexical domain within specific areas, namely medicine and health, this podcast was used as a vocabulary practice exercise. After being presented with words related to medicine and other health-related vocabulary and within the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, (e.g. booster jab, omicron variant, coronavirus, infections, lateral flow testing, etc), students were asked to create a list of other words that could be related to the context of the pandemic and that have been much heard in the media, for example. Then, to practise some of this vocabulary and numbers, students listened to the first five minutes and, while listening (I wrote down the script), they had to fill in the blanks with the most appropriate words or expressions, according to what they heard. The audio script (check further documentation) did not match exactly the said words, but it contained the main ideas of the podcast. This became more demanding as students had to pay closer attention to what was being said. Students listen to the podcast twice. Overall, this listening exercise went really well. Despite some problems in identifying some words, namely lateral flow testing or even the numbers, students were engaged and concentrated. This could also be done as a listening test.

The following steps are suggested:
Lead-in: set the context of health and medicine in the context of Covid-19 and elicit from the students the most frequently heard words on the media during and after the outbreak of the pandemic.
Step 1: The students are asked to write down a list of as many words as possible related to the topic so they can have more complete terminological databases.
Step 2: The lecturer shows some pictures and pieces of news related to the Omicron surge in the UK and elicits from students if the reaction of the government (then led by Boris Johnson) was the most adequate to tackle the whole situation. Students will then listen to a podcast where they will listen to an interview with health experts and Boris Johnson himself. That way, will students not only find out more about what the UC did to cope with the Omicron surge but also become familiar with and apply vocabulary previously presented/taught.
Step 3 – While listening (only the first five minutes of the podcast), students fill in the blanks of the audio script L. has prepared in advance.
Step 4- After watching the video and checking answers, the students are asked to orally discuss what they heard and confirm or not their ideas on the subject.