The 7 Steps July
1. CONTEXT
Mindmap
anything you
know about thetopic, including
vocabulary. Do
some research
online to help.

TikTokListening Questions 1

2. QUESTIONS

1. What could users do on the Musical.ly platform?
.
2. What country and demographic was Musical.ly very popular with?

Read the listening
questions tocheck yourunderstanding.
Look up any new
vocabulary.

.
3. How long do videos on TikTok usually last?
.
4. What trend emerged after the app became TikTok?
.
5. What country does not have TikTok and why?
.

3. LISTEN

Listening Questions 2
1. What did TikTok achieve in Q1 2019?

Listen and answer
the questions
using fullsentences. Circle
the number oftimes and % you
understood.

.
2. As of 2020, how many active users does TikTok have?
.
3. Why was Mark Zuckerberg concerned about TikTok in 2019?
.
4. What record did TikTok make during the Covid-19 pandemic?

1

Listening 1
2 3 4

5%%%%

1

Listening 2
2 3 45%%%%%%.
5. What are 2 reasons why TikTok is becoming more popular than Instagram?
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Discussion Questions
1. What forms of SNS do you use? What are their benefits?
2. What changes in trends of SNS do you think will happen in thefuture?

TRANSCRIPT 1

4. CHECK ANSWERS

Most of us have heard of Facebook, YouTube and Instagram, but have you heard of TikTok?
TikTok is now one of the most popular SNS apps, but chances are if you are part of themillennial generation or older you don’t use it.

Read through thetranscript andunderline theanswers. Checkthem against yourown answers.

Before it was known as TikTok, it was called Musical.ly. Musical.ly was launched in 2014 byChinese entrepreneurs Alex Zhu and Luyu Yang. Musical.ly was a social media platform whereusers created between 15 seconds to 1-minute lip-syncing music videos with soundtracks toaccompany them. At first the app didn’t succeed in the Chinese market, but it had a warm
reception from American teenagers. By the end of May 2017, the app had over 200 million
users, with 100 million of them in North America and Europe.

5. CHECK VOCABULARY
Read thetranscript andcircle any new
vocabulary youfind. Look themup and add themto your list.

Reception

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Exponential

Since its launch, TikTok has expanded exponentially. In the first quarter of 2019, it was themost downloaded app in the Apple store globally for the fifth consecutive quarter. As of 2020, it
is available in more than 150 countries, 75 languages, and has over 800 million active users.
This sudden popularity has gained the attention of competing SNS companies. In October of2019, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook showed concern when he voiced that TikTok had become
more popular than Instagram in India, with one-third of global downloads coming from India. It
was the first Chinese SNS app to garner this much attention internationally.
TikTok and Instagram are often compared due to similarities in the services they provide. For
reference, as of November 2019, Instagram had over 1 billion monthly active users. According
to the analytics firm SensorTower in 2020, TikTok had been downloaded more than 2 billion
times globally. During the Covid-19 pandemic, it had the most successful quarter in terms ofdownloads for an app ever in Q1 of 2020.

Say the transcript
aloud at the sametime as the audio
without reading
it. Circle how
many times
below.

22

GarnerTRANSCRIPT 2

7. SHADOWING

1
1Censorship

1. The recovery of Japan after WW2 led to __________ economic growth.
2. His recent ideas have __________ed a lot of debate among his colleagues.
3. Her decision to stop CSR investment led to a cool __________ from thecompany’s stakeholders.
4. His hard-working nature really __________ed my respect.
5. __________ is a controversial thing for a government to do, but it can beunderstandable when media outlets do it to protect people’s privacy.

Read thetranscript aloudat least 5 times,
focusing on
intonation andpronunciation.

22

Fuel

Fill-in the blanks with the appropriate word / phrase above:

6. READ ALOUD

1
1Musical.ly was acquired by Bytedance Ltd. for over $1billion in 2017, and merged into TikTok in2018. Since becoming TikTok, the time limit for videos has remained the same, with mostlasting from 3 to 15 seconds. However, videos are not limited to lip-syncing anymore, withdancing and comedy videos being particularly popular. TikTok is only available outside of China
due to Chinese censorship restrictions. Within China they have a separate service called
Douyin, which boasts over 400 million daily active users as of 2020.

55Instagram engagement has been gradually declining and many of its influencers have been
actively promoting TikTok. One reason fueling the popularity of TikTok over Instagram is thatthe former doesn’t have any advertisements. TikTok’s business model relies on in-app
purchases of digital gifts, while Instagram’s depends on advertisements. The ease with whichanyone can be a content creator is also seen as a major advantage of TikTok.