Grundwissen: Englisch (10. Jgst.)

Beispiel 1: Mediation

Write a short article (about 140 words) of the following report on a tombstoning accident from the English newspaper “The Independent” for your local paper. First point out what advice the author has for other tombstoners. Then present the summary of the report!

Rosie Allan-Jones: Tombstoning: I was careful and sober. And then I jumped...

Sunday, 3 August 2008

Tombstoning – jumping off rocks or piers into water – has been getting some enthusiastic press.

A year ago I was on holiday in Dubrovnik, Croatia. There is a point just outside the town where tourists and locals go to frolic by jumping into the sea. My boyfriend and I decided to check it out. We were fairly disappointed; the rocks weren't that high, we weren't scared. After jumping off a few of the lower rocks, we watched amazed as a young boy scaled up some massive boulders to a point about 90 feet up. He jumped, surfaced and proclaimed: "I have been doing that since I was 10." A competitive match had been struck inside us. We climbed up and I found myself sitting on top of a rock, hugging my knees, shaking and occasionally peeking down to the calm ocean below. Above me a baiting gaggle of French youths encouraged me to offer myself up to the sea. What was the worst that could happen?

We climbed up and I found myself sitting on top of a rock, hugging my knees, shaking and occasionally peeking down to the calm ocean below. Above me a baiting gaggle of French youths encouraged me to offer myself up to the sea. What was the worst that could happen?

I don't remember jumping, just the build-up. I thought of my father, and how proud he would be. I was falling for three seconds. In the water, I couldn't breathe. All I could feel was an intense pain in my back, as if I had been sliced through. My boyfriend jumped in and swam me over to the rocks. I started to black out but managed to tell him that I couldn't hold myself up, that the pressure on the base of my back was too much.

In the hospital a surgeon looked at me with sad eyes and uttered the words I had refused to think of. "You need to be operated on immediately, the position of the bone in your back means that you are in serious risk of brain damage and paralysis. We need your consent." They gave me some forms to sign. They were in Croatian. I signed.

So when people say tombstoning is safe if you're sober and the water is deep enough, hear this. It is the water that can do the damage. "You wouldn't jump 30ft into concrete," Tom Whipple wrote, "So why would you jump 30ft into a foot of water?" In other words, if it's deep, it's safe. What he failed to note is that hitting water at high speed is the same as hitting concrete, regardless of the depth.

I was not drunk, the water was not shallow and there were no rocks. I hit the water at an angle and that was what shattered my spine. All the safety checks in the world count for nothing against this inconvenient truth.

Beispiel 2: Comprehension:

On the Road, You and Me by Nicholas D. Kristof

(This is an Op-Ed, opinion piece, written by journalist Nicholas Kristof which appeared in the New York Times, March 1, 2006.)

NDJAMENA, Chad - Where's the best place to get an education? Some might say Harvard or Yale, Oxford or the Sorbonne. But maybe you should add Ndjamena to the list.

Universities are - oh so slowly -­recognizing that they need to prepare students to survive globalization. But most overseas studies programs are both too short and too tame. They typically involve sending a herd of students for a term in France or Italy, where they study a little and drink a lot together, amid occasional sightings of locals.

That's why I bring up Ndjamena, this dusty capital of one of the poorest countries in the world. A student living independently here could learn French and Arabic, and would emerge with a much richer understanding of the world than could be taught in any classroom.

Traditionally, many young Britons, Irish, Australians and New Zealanders take a year to travel around the world on a shoestring, getting menial jobs when they run out of money. We should try to inculcate the custom of such a "gap year" in this country by offering university credit for such experiences.

So here's my proposal. Universities should grant a semester's credit to any incoming freshman who has taken a gap year to travel around the world. In the long term, universities should move to a three-year academic program, and require all students to live abroad for a fourth year. In that year, each student would ideally live for three months in each of four continents: Latin America, Asia, Africa and Europe.

A student might, for example, start off teaching English and studying Latin American history in Ecuador, then learn Chinese intensively in Chengdu, then work at an AIDS clinic in Botswana while reading African literature on the side, and finish up by studying Islamic history in Istanbul. In each place, the students would live with local families.

Since the best way to learn about public health challenges is to endure them, I would also suggest offering extra credit for any student who gets malaria.

The cost of a year of travel would be far less than the annual cost of attending many colleges in the U.S. Third-class trains and buses are incredibly cheap; you can sometimes ride free on top of the trains. As a student backpacker myself in India two decades ago, I once lined up with the beggars and lepers of Amritsar to get free gruel from a Sikh temple - but that embarrassed even me.

In any case, all this suffering builds character. And students would get far more out of a year of travel than a year in classrooms.

Meanwhile, there's no need for universities to take the first step. Spring break season is upon us, and university students are dashing off to party in Mexico and Florida. So, you student readers, how about dashing off instead to Mongolia, where you'll find plenty of sand - the Gobi Desert - and get a truly exotic alcoholic drink: fermented mare's milk.

As for parents, if you have a child graduating from high school or college this year, forget about a conventional graduation present. Instead, send him or her off with a friend with a one-way ticket to Timbuktu.

Over a year or so, the kids would figure out how to catch rides with trucks north over the Sahara, then hitchhike through the Middle East and across Central Asia. After a temporary job in Calcutta to earn a few rupees, they could migrate through East Asia and then make enough money as tutors teaching English in China to buy cheap air tickets home.

Now, that would be an education!

A) Reading Comprehension

Indicate whether the following statements are true (T) or false (F).(10)

B) Answer the following questions on the text!

1. Is the author serious about the following suggestions: “That's why I bring up Ndjamena, this dusty capital of one of the poorest countries in the world.”(ll.15/16) and “I would also suggest offering extra credit for any student who gets malaria.”(ll.32/33). Find reasons for your decision! (10)

He is definitely serious about the first quote. Ndjamena , the far away capital of Chad, serves as a place of study for Western students, who would then get a better education than they would get at home by living with the locals and experiencing everyday life in these poor countries. Living with everyday people gives the university student more experience than any monitored exchange program organized by some agency. The second quote however is ironic. He simply wants to emphasize how important it is for him to use life experience for university credits.

2. The author suggests that parents should give their children a one way ticket to Timbuktu for their graduation. Would that help them in their future life? (10)

Giving them a one-way ticket means that the students will have to find a way back to their country without using the traditional airplane. They will have to find ways to get back, organize means of transportation, stay with locals and find ways to get in contact with the people of their host country. They will be taught organizing skills, language skills, cultural awareness and values of different nations. These are abilities they will definitely be able to use later in their lives.