A) Listening Text Instruction and Pre-listening Discussion Questions

You are going to listen to a talk by Tan Le entitled My Immigration Story. Before listen, discuss in groups the following questions:

1. Does your home country or province accept many people who arrive as refugees?
2. What reasons might there be for a person to claim refugee status?
3. How might it be different to arrive in a country as a refugee than to make a choice to immigrate somewhere?

B) Vocabulary Preview

Complete the vocabulary table below with definitions and sample sentences.

Word	Meaning	Used in a Sentence
bond (N)
mock (V)
in vain (phr)
distill (V)
pirate (N)
bravado (N)
oblivious (adj)
parallel (adj)
precarious (adj)
protocol (N)
candidly (adv)
implacable (adj)

C) Listening for Main Ideas and Details

Link to the Listening:

Tan Le: My immigration story | TED Talk

First Listening: As you listen to the talk, follow the main ideas given in the chart below. You

don’t need to write anything. Think about how the TED Talk has a 7-part structure.

Second Listening: Now look at the details provided in the column on the right. As you listen a second time, complete the notes with details that come before or after the provided notes.

Click Check and Show Solution to see if your note covers the same information. You notes don’t have to be exactly the same as the solution.

D) Discussion Questions

With a partner, discuss the following questions. Then join your instructor and classmates for a class discussion.

1. Do you know any families like Tan Le’s, where 3 (or more) generations live together in the same home? What about families that are single gender (all female or all male)? Do you think the dynamic in these families is different than in traditional (2 generation, 2 gender) families? How so?
2. Do you think interacting in a new context after she won the Young Australian of the Year award made Tan Le feel like a new immigrant all over again?
3. Do you think sometimes it is less scary to stay in less than ideal/negative situations because they are comfortable and familiar, rather than to take a chance on finding something better?
4. Almost all parents try to give their children a better and easier life than they themselves experienced. Do you think that sometimes this can be a mistake?
5. Why, at the end of the talk, do you think Tan Le says that if she could give her own experience of escaping on the boat to her children (but still keep them safe), then she would?

E) Follow Up Writing

1. Use reported speech to outline what Tan Le says about how she felt after winning the Young Australian of the Year award and being forced to interact in a new environment.
2. How effective is Tan Le’s description of her journey to escape Vietnam by boat? What type of language does she use to make it seem more real to the listener?

F) Grammar Focus: Prepositions

Click on the prepositions in this excerpt of the first part of the TED talk. Then complete the chart that follows by finding 3 examples of each type of preposition. Finally, answer the follow up questions.

G) L1 Reflection

Think about your first language and its use of prepositions. Do you think English has more or fewer prepositions than your first language does? Can you think of any examples where one preposition in one language conveys the meaning of more than one in the other language, as in the example above? Do you find it challenging to use prepositions correctly in English?

Discuss your reflections with a partner or small group and compare your responses. Then join your instructor and classmates for a class discussion.

H) Summary Statement