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ReadingReading Multi-modal Texts – part 2

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Teacher’s notesFlash activity (these activities are not editable)

Extension activities

Icons key: For more detailed instructions, see the Getting Started presentation

Web addressesSound VideoAccompanying worksheet

Functional skills

Learning objectives

Identify the key features of a multi-modal text

Learn how to critically analyse blogs and podcasts

Evaluate the impact of language choices and presentational features in multi-modal texts

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Blogs

A blog, or ‘web log’, is a type of website which most often takes the form of a shared online journal. Blogs are maintained by individuals as a way of sharing opinions and ideas with a wider community.

Like websites, blogs can be multi-modal. Many bloggers include links to other websites, embed recommended videos and podcasts, and enable others to make comments on them.

In what ways might the use of language in blogs differ from the language used

in normal websites?

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Mati Rose

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Designing blogs

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Podcasts

Podcasts are audio or video files that are distributed via the Internet in a digital format.

Many websites, especially those that carry news, include podcasts of information, discussions and interviews.

These can either be listened to online, or downloaded onto an mp3 device to be heard at the listener’s convenience.

In pairs, list as many reasons that you can

think of for why websites might

include podcasts.

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Podcasts

Listen to this podcast on the subject of teen smokers and answer the following questions:

1. Who is the target audience of this podcast?

2. What is the purpose of the podcast?

3. Why do you think the form of an interview podcast has been chosen? What are the advantages of this form as opposed to, for example, a magazine?

4. What is the structure of the dialogue? How does the structure encourage turn-taking?

5. What points can you make about the use of colloquial language? Why do you think this is used?

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Extended writing

How effectively does the teen smoker podcast communicate its message to its target audience?

Answer this question in well-developed paragraphs as an extended writing task. Make sure that you refer to the

following in your written response:

the interview formatthe role of the interviewerthe teenagers as intervieweesthe language features and devices usedthe interview outcome.