LANGUAGE FOCUS: Communicative Functions: Request and give reasons- Addressing opinions

LEVEL: B1+ / B2

AGE RANGE: 17/18

CLASS SIZE: 12

TIME: 45-60 minutes

TYPE OF SCHOOL: Liceo Classico/Linguistico

TOPIC: Richard Nixon, the lights and shadows

Priming:

Before introducing the task the teacher takes 10 to 15 minutes to introduce the figure of Richard Nixon, welcoming any contribution from anyone
who is acknowledged. He/she might start with facts that could raise interest and therefore motivation. The teacher explains the following points
making sure everybody understand and providing explanation for difficult terms or phrases:

-He has been the first and only President to resign, in the face of almost certain impeachment and removal from office.

-He is considered by the public opinion, the main responsible for the Vietnam war that shocked America and caused almost 4 million victims.

-He was elected President in 1968, after promising that he would have continued the peace negotiation in Vietnam started by President Johnson. Once
elected he did not do so, instead he sent more troops to war and the conflict only finished 5 years later. In 1969 he ordered the bombing of Cambodia,
claiming to have found there the “Headquarters of Communism”.

-He is also popular for the best known political scandal of all times: the “Watergate”. Watergate is a general term used to describe a complex web of
political scandals between 1972 and 1974.The word refers to the Watergate Hotel in Washington D.C. It was here that the office of the Democratic National
Committee was burgled on June 17th, 1972. The burglary and subsequent cover-up by the President eventually led to moves to impeach President Richard
Nixon. Nixon resigned the presidency on 8 August 1974. The burglars were then discovered to be members of the so called “plumbers team”, instructed by
the President and Vice President to spy on the Democrats.

-In 1977 the famous British broadcaster and anchorman David Frost interviewed him and asked him about all lights and shadows of his presidency, a 2008
film by Ron Howard is based on this interview.

Task:

1- After making sure that all the points are clear adding the explanation of new words and phrases, the
teacher now divides the class in 4 pairs, leaving 2 observers out, assigning roles and role cards (student A
playing Ford and B playing Nixon). One role-card for each group contains instructions for the two roles.
Each student now has 10 to 15 minutes to read their role card carefully, prepare a short speech of about 2
or 3 minutes (a question for Student A and a reply for Student B) and address it to the audience. The role
cards are based on 4 different scenarios taken from the film Frost/Nixon by Ron Howard, in each of them
the students are given a background and indications on how to address their speech, the aim of each task
is to address your point in the best way possible convincing the audience that you are right. The teacher
also provides a useful phrase box used for giving opinions.

PHRASE BOX- GIVING OPINIONS

'In my opinion' is the classic expression - but it's not the only one. Use moderately.

'To my mind' and 'For me' are common spoken form - and you can use it in writing, too.

'If you ask me' is very, very common in spoken English, and can come first or last in a sentence.

'To my way of thinking' is often used with emphasis on 'my' to give a strong opinion.

'In my view' is common in spoken and written English.

The abbreviated question '(Do you) know what I think?' is very popular and is not rude.

The conditional structure I'd say is rarely taught as a conditional, but this is one of the most common
ways of giving an opinion in English.
ROLE PLAY CARDS

GROUP 1

STUDENT A- You are David Frost, the famous anchorman, and you are interviewing the former President of the United States Richard
Nixon. The success of your career mostly depends on the success of this interview. You want to ask Mr President about the tape
recording system of the White House that he insisted on removing, the system recording every single conversation held in the
presidential rooms and introduced by his predecessor President Johnson. What can you ask about it? How can you model your
question to make it effective and hit the target?

STUDENT B- You are the former President of the US Richard Nixon and you are being interviewed by the famous anchorman David
Frost, the interview is going through all lights and shadows of your presidency. You must now justify to your interviewer your proposal of
removing the taping recording system from the White House. The real reason why you proposed that is to feel free to instruct your
“plumbers team” and “obstruct justice” to become more powerful! But you obviously cannot say that! You are live on TV and millions of
Americans are watching you! What argument can you use to justify your action and make it sound believable?

GROUP 2

STUDENT A- You are David Frost, the famous anchorman, and you are interviewing the former President of the United States Richard
Nixon. The success of your career mostly depends on the success of this interview. Mr President has just claimed that he always knew
that the only two responsible for the Watergate scandal were his co-operators Haldeman and Ehrlichman. What can you ask him about
that? How can you challenge him on this issue without being too direct? What argument can you use to undress the truth?

STUDENT B- You are the former President of the US Richard Nixon and you are being interviewed by the famous anchorman David
Frost, the interview is going through all lights and shadows of your presidency. The interview is now dealing with the Watergate scandal.
Your scapegoats are your former co-operators Haldeman and Ehrlichman and in the previous question you blamed them for everything,
claiming you always knew it was them who conspired . David Frost will certainly want to go into details now. Remember, the truth is that
many are responsible for the Watergate scandal, including you obviously. How can you defend yourself from attack? How can you
convince the audience that there were only two responsible and everything was just their fault?

GROUP 3

STUDENT A- You are David Frost, the famous anchorman, and you are interviewing the former President of the United States Richard
Nixon. The success of your career mostly depends on the success of this interview. You now feel it’s time to play your ace card: the
Vietnam War. History has told America that Nixon was lying, he promised to stop the Vietnam war in 1968 to be elected, but once he
became President, he didn’t start peace negotiations but actually sent to Vietnam more troops, making it last for five more years. You
don’t want to say this directly, it would be very effective to lead him to admit it or extract an apology to the nation. How can you introduce
your question? You don’t want to sound as the big national judge, but it would be very good if you could lead him to tell the truth.

STUDENT B- You are the former President of the US Richard Nixon and you are being interviewed by the famous anchorman David
Frost, the interview is going through all lights and shadows of your presidency. Frost is asking you about the Vietnam War; during the
1968 electoral campaign, you promised to the nation you would have ended the war if elected, but once elected you didn’t, and sent
more troops. How are you going to justify that? What forced you to continue the war? Do you feel the war is your fault? Apologizing for
all the victims might redeem you in front of the nation but it would prove everybody that you contributed to cause 3.8 million deaths.

GROUP 4

STUDENT A- You are David Frost, the famous anchorman, and you are interviewing the former President of the United States Richard
Nixon. The success of your career mostly depends on the success of this interview. You want to ask Nixon about something very
delicate, the bombing of Cambodia of 1969. Point out that all observers including CIA and Pentagon had advised the President not to do
it, but he did it anyway. Are you going to get the same justifications he gave to the press? Are you going to get an apology to the nation?
Are you going to find out about something you didn’t know that might justify a bombing attack? This all depends on how well structured
your question is and what YOU want to get from the answer

STUDENT B- You are the former President of the US Richard Nixon and you are being interviewed by the famous anchorman David
Frost, the interview is going through all lights and shadows of your presidency. Frost is asking you to justify the bombing you ordered in
Cambodia. How can you justify something like that? How can you convince Americans that it was the right thing to do? Is there
something they don’t know about those days that might lead them to reconsider your position and let you get away with it?

2- After all questions are asked and replied, the two observers will debate on who has given the best speech
and why, using the phrase box. They might agree or disagree (observers and role players are allowed to take
notes during the task).

3- The teacher now reads the real dialogues taken from the script of the film related to those situations so that
the students can compare their speaking strategy and arguments used, to the ones actually used by the real
Nixon and Frost dealing with the same situations, during the real interview of 1977. A discussion follows.
FILM SCRIPT EXTRACTS

Group 1

Frost: Mr President, we are going to be covering a lot of subjects in a great deal of details during the course of this interview, but I’d like to begin
completely out of context by asking you one question, more than any other, almost every American and people all over the world want me to
ask: “Why didn’t you burn the tapes”?

Nixon: ......What probably very few people is that the taping system in the White House was set up by my predecessor President Johnson .....on
coming to the White House I insisted on dismantling the system........you see, since the best advice is almost always of the confidential variety,
people are unlikely ever to feel comfortable speaking in confidence at the White House, they are less likely to offer that advice, so in the end it’s
the all political system and by implication the country that suffers.

Group 2

Frost: If Haldeman and Ehrlichman were really the ones responsible, when you found out, why didn’t you call the police and have them
arrested?

Nixon: Maybe I should have done it....But I’m not made that way...these man, I knew their families, known them since they were kids. And I’ve
always maintained, what they were doing, what we were all doing was not criminal .......look...when you are in office, you have to do a lot of
things that are not in the strictest sense of the law, legal, but you do them because they’re in the greater interest of the nation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFHYiOfBRng

Group 3

Frost: You came to office promising peace but no sooner did you get into the White House, the US involvement in Vietnam deepened and the
war was prolonged with calamitous consequences. Did you feel you’d betrayed the people that had elected you.

Nixon: Vietnam was not my fault! It was my inheritance. Off course I could have “bugged out”, blamed it on my predecessors and pulled the
troops out early and very possibly won some Scandinavian Peace Prize. But I believed in the cause! And sometimes what you believe in is the
harder path. It could be said that I was the last casualty of Vietnam.

Group 4

Frost: And Cambodia? An invasion that everyone had advised you against! All the Pentagon and CIA intelligence suggested it would fail. So why
did you do it?

Nixon: Well, first of all, as a result of our incursion into Cambodia, we picked up 22000 rifles, 15 million rounds of ammunitions, 150000 rockets
and mortars belonging to the North Vietnamese which would only otherwise have been directed onto American soldiers or innocent South
Vietnamese civilians. As a result, our casualties went down and we were able to step up our withdrawal

4- EXCERSISES:

1Match the following words or expression with their correct definition:

1)To resign A) Journalist

2)In the face of B) A centre of operations, as of a military commander or a business

3)Impeachment C) Written copy for the use of performers in films and plays

4)Peace negotiation D) The crime of breaking into and entering the house, office with the intention of committing theft or damage

5)Headquarters E) When threatened by something 

6)Burglary F) When countries or groups involved in a war or violent conflict are discussing to reach peace

7)Cover-up G) To keep something secret or to favour somehow its secrecy

8)Anchorman H) To intentionally give up an office or position

9)Film script I) Accusation (to a public official) of misconduct in office by bringing charges before an appropriate court or place of
hearing

10) Scapegoat L) someone who is forced to take the blame for others

11)Tape recording M)To do the thing that you know will bring you success

12)“Plumbers” team N) A covert white house special investigation unit, established during the Nixon presidency

13)To play you ace card O) A mechanical device for recording on magnetic tape and usually for playing back the recorded material.

14)To obstruct justice P) A criminal offense that involves interference, through words or actions, with the proper 

operations of a court or officers of the court
FILL IN THE GAPS

1)The office of the Democratic National Committee was..................on June 17th, 1972

2) In 1977 the famous British broadcaster and anchorman David Frost interviewed him and asked him about all ................. of his presidency

3)Richard Nixon has been the first and only President to....................

4)Richard Nixon is also popular for the best known ...................... of all times: the “Watergate”

5) During the 1968 election campaign he promised that he would have continued.....................in Vietnam started by President Johnson instead he
sent ............. to war

6) In 1969 he ordered the bombing of Cambodia, claiming to have found there the.................................

7) The ............and subsequent ............. by the President eventually led to moves to impeach President Nixon

8) The burglars were then discovered to be members of the so called .........................

9) .....................is a general term used to describe a complex web of political scandals between 1972 and 1974.

10) The .......... of David Frost’s career mostly depended on the ................. of his interview with Richard Nixon.

5- FOLLOW UP ACTIVITY

During the following lesson, the class will watch the entire film Frost/Nixon subtitled in English and everyone will have to take notes of
interesting ways of addressing opinions (different from the ones used in the role-plays) during the interview.