HAPPY NEW YEAR!! Let's start by analysing Barack Obama's final State of the Union Address of Jan.12, 2016
Autor: Flávia Uhlmann | Publicado: 2016-01-13T04:48:00-08:00

Dearest all,

Hope you all had great celebrations &nbsp;with your family and friends at Christmas and New Year!

Hope you are all alive and kicking to a great linguistic start (for my new students) or restart (for my existing ones)!!







To boost your listening comprehension, I invite you all to watch part (30 min) of Barack Obama's last State of the Union address (SOTU) of January 12.&nbsp;This is his last mandate year.

While watching it, please have in mind some questions to guide your comprehension. See below.&nbsp;

I wish you all a great course ! A lot of challenges ahead I hope to give you.

See you in class and here on this blog to build a good linguistic network with your virtual peers.

Count on your participation here.

A little note: for those who want to follow the hot debate between the American Democratic Candidates, here's the link to the last televised one on Jan 17th:&nbsp;
Jan.17th Debate of Democratic Party Presidential Candidates 

Enjoy!!

Flávia



Go to&nbsp;Obama's State of the Union Address of Jan. 12, 2016&nbsp; and answer the following questions. Select some of them ( 3 to 4) to answer in order to post on the blog comment box.




1) (the first 10 minutes)


&nbsp; &nbsp; What can you notice about Obama's speech tone: optimistic/pessimistic, &nbsp;agressive/ &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; peaceful, assertive/defeatist, and/or courageous/fearsome?




2) (at 13:51')


&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;What does Obama say about the US economy?




3) (at 15:46')


&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;What does he say about technology and jobs?




4) ( at 15:53')


&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Obama states that nowadays companies are located everywhere and can face tough competition. According to him, how can this affect&nbsp;workers,&nbsp;company loyalty and wealth concentration? Do you agree? Why?




5) (at 16:42')


&nbsp; &nbsp; How can the following Americans' general belief&nbsp;Everybody who works hard should get a fair shot&nbsp;be affected by the present difficult economic trends mentioned by Obama?&nbsp;




6) (at 17:20')


&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;He referred to a bipartisan (both Democrats and Republicans) reform that was very important. What was it? Do you agree?




7) (at 17:30 till 18:20')


&nbsp; &nbsp; What does he say about high school graduation rates? Also about graduates, &nbsp;teachers for kids and college? How do you see all these past and future measures?



8) (at 19:22 till 20:00')

&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;What is the comment Obama made on retirment that got laughs from the audince? What else did he say about the retirement process?




9) (at 20:15')


&nbsp; &nbsp; What does Obama advise in relation to social security and Medicare health program?



10) (from 21:49 to 22:50')

&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Obama hypothesizes a case of an American who loses his job. What does he intend to show with this story? Do you think his solutions are a good way to help an unemployed person? Why?




11) (from 23:00 25:00')


&nbsp; &nbsp;Obama refers to lots of &nbsp;conflicts of interest and disagreements between the parties (democrats x republicans) and sectors (private x public). Choose some of them you consider important to the world economy.

12) (at 25:57')
&nbsp; &nbsp;How can you answer Obama's question: How do we reignite that spirit of innovation to meet our biggest challenges?&nbsp;After this question he brings up examples of American breakthroughs - which ones are the best in your opinion?


&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;