Compelling Conversations: for Advanced students

TALKING ABOUT TELEVISION

“All television is educational television. The question is: what is it teaching?”

—Nicholas Johnson, (1934-), former Federal Communications Commission chair

Getting Acquainted

Almost everybody watches television, but somehow many people feel ashamed of doing it. Interview your conversation partner and find out about their tastes in TV shows.

1. When did you start watching TV? How many years have you watched television?

2. Were the TV shows in color or black and white?

3. When did your family first get a television? Why?

4. Did you have some favorite TV shows, cartoons, or characters as a child? Why?

5. Where did you usually watch TV? With whom did you watch?

6. Did you ever watch any English language programs as a child?

7. How many television sets are in your home today? Which do you use the most?

8. How many channels do you receive at home? How many do you regularly watch?

9. What television programs do you like to watch with your family?

10. What TV programs do you like to watch with your friends? Alone?

11. Do you eat while watching television? Pay bills? Wash dishes? Knit? Quilt? Do crafts?

12. What are your favorite television programs now? Why?

13. Do you pay for cable or satellite? Do you subscribe to any channels like HBO?

14. Do you follow any dramatic series on a regular basis? Which ones?

15. How many hours, on a weekly basis, do you usually watch?

16. Would you like to watch more television? What would you like to watch more?

17. Do you ever feel guilty about watching television? Why?

Vocabulary

Choose the words you know. Write questions using new words.

broadcast | personalities | reality TV | characters

controversy | closed-captioned

The Conversation Continues

1. When are you most likely to watch television? Where? Why?

2. When are you least likely to watch television? Where? Why?

3. Are there more channels than when you were a child? Can you give an example?

4. What are some influential television programs in your country?

5. What television programs can you recommend for children? Young adults? Why?

6. Can you suggest some programs for seniors? Why?

7. In what languages are programs broadcast in your city? Which channels seem to cater to immigrant populations?

8. Do you watch closed-captioned (for the deaf) or subtitled programs?

9. Do you find American TV shows educational? Strange? Funny? Why? Can you give an example?

10. Have you seen any reality TV shows? Which ones? What did you think?

11. What are some popular crime and detective shows? Which ones? Why?

12. Who are some famous TV personalities or stars? Any personal favorites?

13. Who is Oprah? Jerry Springer? Larry King? Jon Stewart? Homer Simpson?

14. What TV shows would you recommend to a visitor to the United States? Why?

15. Have you found any differences between the TV news coverage in your country and the United States? Can you give an example?

16. How has television changed in the last decade? How would you like to change TV?

17. What do you think are some social effects of television? Why?

Discussing Quotations

With your conversation partner(s) or on your own, read the following quotations out loud. Do you agree? Do you disagree? Why? Explain your reasons.

1. “Television could perform a great service in mass education, but there’s no indication its sponsors have anything like this on their minds.”

—Tallulah Bankhead (1903-1968), American actress

2. “I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.”

—Groucho Marx (1890-1977), comedian

3. “In the age of television, image becomes more important than substance.”

—S.I. Hayakawa (1906-1992), U.S. Senator from California

4. “Television is an invention that permits you to be entertained in your living room by people you wouldn’t have in your home.”

—David Frost (1939-), British broadcast journalist

5. “Television is the first truly democratic culture-the first culture available to everybody and entirely governed by what the people want. The most terrifying thing is what people want.”

—Clive Barnes (1927-2008), critic and author

6. “Seeing a murder on television can help work off one’s antagonisms. And if you haven’t any antagonisms, the commercials will give you some.”

—Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980), British film director

7. “When television is good, nothing is better. When it’s bad, nothing is worse.”

—Newton N. Minow (1926-), media critic

8. “Television is not real life. In real life, people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.”

—Bill Gates (1955-), American entrepreneur and philanthropist

9. “Television has proved that people will look at anything rather than each other.”

—Ann Landers (1918-2002), advice columnist

10. “I want to use television not only to entertain, but to help people lead better lives.”

—Oprah Winfrey (1954-), TV host, producer, and actress

11. “Television! Teacher, mother, secret lover.”

—Homer Simpson, cartoon character

12. “I hate television. I hate it as much as peanuts. But I can’t stop eating peanuts.”

—Orson Welles (1915-1985), American actor

13. “Television is a method to deliver advertising like a cigarette is a method to deliver nicotine.”

—Bill Maher (1956-), social critic

14. “Television, that insidious beast, that Medusa which freezes a billion people to stone every night, staring fixedly, that siren which called and sang and promised so much and gave, after all, so little.”

—Ray Bradbury (1920-2012), American science fiction writer

15. “Television brought the brutality of the war into the comfort of the living room. Vietnam was lost in the living rooms of America-not on the battlefields of Vietnam.”

—Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980), media scholar

16. “Life doesn’t imitate art; it imitates bad television.”

—Woody Allen (1935-), comedian

On Your Own

On a separate sheet of paper, complete this sentence: I would like to be on a TV show because ___________.