| about this site | who we are | site map | reading tips | teaching tips | student tips | build vocab | | teaching vocab | hot links | visit Thai school | Bangkok Post | student weekly | home

This column is for self-study or classroom use and gives guided help with reading the wide variety of writing styles and topics that appear as feature articles in the Bangkok Post. The lessons include background information, skill-building practice and vocabulary explanations. August 16, 2005 Making things easy INTRODUCTION

TEACHERS In some respects it is much easier to be an English teacher today than it was when I began teaching way back in 1968. There is so much more material available, especially on the Internet. Take today’s lessons for example. All you have to do is to cut and paste the students’ lessons into a word processing program from our website, print them out and copy them and you have a lesson. You can also go a step further on your own. You can go to the Bangkok Post’s website at www.bangkokpost.com and find the story on the AirAsia incident, copy it and make a simple exercise like the one below. In this case, I chose the words to cut, focusing on the meaning of the story and certain vocabulary words that the students should know and remember. In this lesson, see if the students can simply guess the missing words from the AirAsia story with or without the list provided. This is an effective vocabulary lesson that can easily be adapted to suit any short news story that may be of interest to students. You can also get students to follow the progress of news stories either in the newspaper or on the Internet. STUDENTS Here is another one of these strange stories that often appear in the bottom right corner of page one of the Bangkok Post. For the most part it is just a report about a very petty incident aboard an AirAsia flight last week. Read to find out exactly what happened. There is also a lesson in the story about customer service. Do you think the passengers involved were pleased with the service they received? Do you think they will fly on this airline again? How did the Bangkok Post find out about this story?

OUR STORY FROM THE BANGKOK POST Noodle attack delays flight ACHADTHAYA CHUENNIRAN Passengers disembark an AirAsia plane— SAYANT PORNANTHARAT MISSING WORDS tried irate waiting threw nothing hitting eyewitnesses refused departure quarrel smiles told ANSWERS 1. quarrel 2. waiting 3. tried 4. refused 5. threw 6. hitting 7. eyewitnesses 8. told 9. departure 10. irate 11. nothing 12. smiles Phuket – An angry passenger threw a cup of hot noodles at an air hostess after being asked not to use her mobile phone during takeoff from Bangkok yesterday. The mid-air ..............1.............. resulted in 200 passengers booked on the plane’s return flight being kept ..............2.............. for nearly four hours at Phuket airport. An airport official said the quarrel erupted on AirAsia flight FD3015, from Bangkok to Phuket, after a woman passenger ..............3.............. to make a call on her mobile phone during takeoff. The flight attendant asked her to turn off the phone but the passenger ..............4............... The attendant insisted she not make the call as it was against flight regulations. As the flight attendant turned her back to leave, the passenger ..............5.............. a hot cup of noodles at her, ..............6.............. her in the back, according to the airport official. The passenger later claimed the flight attendant called her names although she could not produce any ..............7............... When the plane landed in Phuket, police were informed and the captain, flight attendant and passenger were ..............8.............. to report to police. Meanwhile, 200 passengers were waiting to board the plane to return to Bangkok at the scheduled ..............9.............. time of 5:45pm. An ..............10.............. passenger called the Bangkok Post at 8:15pm complaining they had not been informed of the reason for the delay. “Some of us have overseas connecting flights to make, some have emergencies waiting at home and they told us ..............11.............. “Instead, they ask for police guards to ensure peace among us,” said Chanthawipa Apisuk, secretary-general of Empower Foundation, an organisation working to protect the rights of sex workers. “Our request for an explanation met with ..............12.............. from the ground crew and nothing else.” AirAsia airport staff declined to comment. The flight finally left at 9:15pm. petty small and unimportant quarrel an angry argument erupted began suddenly eyewitnesses people who see something happen departure leaving irate very angry declined refused • This lesson is adapted from the Bangkok Post’s You Can Read website. For more inspiring lesson ideas, log on to www.bangkokpost.com/youcanread. Read our other learner centre columns here. Return to our home page. | © The Post Publishing Public Co., Ltd. All rights reserved 2005 | Last modified: August 15, 2005