English conversation lessons based on short newspaper items.

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.

February 8, 2005

WHO NEEDS A TEXTBOOK?

INTRODUCTION

Today, your Bangkok Post is much better than any of your textbooks. It is covering a topic that is very real and very important to all of us living here in Thailand. Best of all, the subject — the general election 2005 — is quite interesting as well. So let’s not spend most of our time today with lessons as such, but looking at the front section of the Bangkok Post itself.

I’m going to suggest a few tasks and you can carry them out by looking at the election coverage in the front section. This is actually the second day after the election, so the attention is shifting from the results of the election to what they mean for the future. However, you will still find plenty of stories about the results as well.
VOCABULARY: ELECTION RESULTS

Below are some words that occur frequently in stories about elections results. Find examples of such stories in the front (news) section of the newspaper and look to see if you can find any of these words in them. Check each word that you find. You can also add any other election-related words that you find to any of the categories below.

Basics

eligible voter
a person who has the right to vote

turnout
the percentage of eligible voters who actually vote

margin (of victory)
the amount (in numbers of votes or percentages) a candidate or party wins an election by

ballots
voting papers

cast ballots
to vote

go to the polls
to go to vote

constituency
an election district

opponent; rival
a competitor
Winning big (i.e. by a large margin)

landslide
a very large victory

sweep; clean sweep
to win all the seats in an area

trounce; thrash; crush; rout
to badly defeat an opponent
Barely winning (i.e., by a very small margin)

edge; edge out
eke out (a win, a victory)

narrowly defeat; win a narrow victory
accepting victory or admitting defeat

claim victory
to say that you have won

concede
to admit that you have lost

CONTENT

1. Find stories on each of the four major parties. Write the headlines of the stories and the pages on which you found them.

Thai Rak Thai Party
Headline and page number:.........................................................
..................................................................................................

Democrat Party
Headline and page number:.........................................................
..................................................................................................

Chart Thai Party
Headline and page number:.........................................................
..................................................................................................

Mahachon Party
Headline and page number:.........................................................
..................................................................................................

Here are some questions about the election results. You may not be able to answer all of them from stories in the Bangkok Post, but you might be able to do so from reading and listening to the Thai-language media.

2. How many seats did each of the four main parties win in total?
3. Did any of these parties fail to win party-list seats? If so, which ones?
4. Did any of the smaller parties win seats in parliament as well?
5. The Thai Rak Thai party was trying very hard to win seats in the southern provinces — traditional a stronghold of the Democrats. How well (or poorly) did it succeed?
6. The Democrat Party aimed for 201 seats. How close did it come to meeting that goal?
7. In Bangkok, were the Democrats able to win more than nine seats the party won last time?
8. Chart Thai has always controlled Suphan Buri province. Did the party win a clean sweep this time?
9. Mahachon Party leaders said they expected to win at least 70 seats. Did they?
LOOKING AHEAD

Find a story that deals with the new government’s plans for the future. Who is most likely to be the prime minister? Does it give any idea of who might be in the cabinet? Find a story about one or more parties that did more poorly then it expected. What does it say about its (or their) plans for the future?

OUR STORIES FROM THE BANGKOK POST

The elections in pictures

Name as many of these Democrat Party members as you can.

When Chuwit Kamonwisit joined the Chart Thai Party, he said he hoped to win at least 150,000 votes in Bangkok for the party-list candidates. Was he successful? Did he gain a seat in parliament for himself?

Fill in the blanks with the appropriate word: Postmen at Chaeng Watthana post office in Bang Khen stack boxes of blank .................................. before they are delivered to ................................... stations nationwide for the February 6 general election.

This candidate also had troubles during the last week of the campaign. Who is he and what was his problem about? Did he win his constituency anyway?

Mahachon party's candidate for Ayutthaya's constituency 1, Surachet Chaikosol, had to stop campaigning for a few days. Why? Did he win a seat in parliament?

This prominent politician refused to follow his party leader Chavilit Yongchaiyudh when he and his party members joined the Thai Rak Thai Party. Instead, he led his old party into Sunday's general election. Who is he and what is the name of his party? Did it win any seats in parliament?

Who are these celebrity candidates and did they win or lose?

Teachers

We here at the learning post will do this worksheet ourselves on Tuesday morning and we’ll have the results for you in our Tuesday notes on the Bangkok Post on our website www.bangkokpost.com/education. We’ll also have more suggestions for you in our teachers notes which are also available on our website.

• This lesson was prepared by Acharn Terry Fredrickson, BA Stanford, MA (TESL) University of Minnesota, Manager/Editor of the Learning Post at the Bangkok Post and general editor of this programme.

Read our other instant lesson here.

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