Chinese New Year

TOPIC: Chinese New Year

WARM-UP: What things come to mind when you think of Chinese New Year? What does Chinese New Year mean to you?

1. Spend one minute writing down all of the words you associate with Chinese New Year. Share your words with other students and talk about them.

OBJECTIVES: Today, we will focus on learning about Chinese New Year. This is important to learn because it is the most important traditional Chinese holiday celebrated in Taiwan. This session will help you talk about the event, vocabulary, and conversations that take place about this topic in English. By the end of this class, you will be able to comfortably talk to visitors, co-workers, and friends about Chinese New Year in English.

LEARNING ACTIVITIES:

A: BEFORE READING:

1. VOCABULARY: Match the following pictures to the vocabulary words below:

1		Incense
2		Lanterns
3		Chinese Plum
4		Red packets
5		Gold ingots
6		Lion dance
7		Koi fish
8		Tangyuan
9		Dragon dance
10		Noodle-making
11		Couplets
12		Dumplings
13		New Year Cake
14		Traditional Chinese Knots
15		Firecrackers

2. As a class, create a word cluster from the words in the Warm-Up and the Matching Exercise above on the whiteboard. Add any other words or phrases that come to mind. Then, divide the words into groups. Useful groupings may include:

Preparations	Food	Clothing	Activities/Practices
Decorations	Superstitions	Greetings	Feelings/Emotions

B: WHILE READING:

1. Read the following two paragraphs about Chinese New Year.
2. Circle or underline all of the words that you do not understand.

Chinese New Year is the most important of the Chinese holidays. Many people who live outside China call it the Lunar New Year. People celebrate this holiday all across the world. Chinese New Year’s Day begins on the first day of the first lunar month in the Chinese calendar. It ends on the 15th day. This day is called the Lantern Festival and is another time to celebrate and have a party. Chinese New Year’s Day changes every year because of the Chinese zodiac. The exact day depends on if it is the year of the dragon, rat, horse, dog, etc. It is always sometime between January the 21st and February the 20th. The Chinese are not in agreement which year it is. In 2008, it could be the year 4645, 4705 or 4706 in China.

The first day of the Chinese New Year is when Chinese people welcome the different gods to their homes. There are many superstitions on this day. Many people believe that not eating meat will bring them a long life. Others believe it is bad luck to light fires so many people cook the day before. Other bad luck things to do on New Year’s Day are getting a hair-cut, sweeping the floor and buying books. The most important thing to do on this day is to visit your family. Children like this day because they get money from their older relatives. It is a very festive time. People hang red lanterns from their houses and cook all kinds of traditional food. It is also very noisy as people let off firecrackers and fireworks in the street to celebrate.

C: AFTER READING:

1. How is Chinese New Year celebrated in Taiwan? Divide into groups and complete the following chart from the activity in A2 above. This will help you talk to foreigners about Chinese New Year and answer the questions that they have.

Group name	How? What? Why? Who? Where? When?
Preparations
Food
Clothing
Activities/Practices
Decorations
Superstitions
Greetings
Feelings/Emotions

2. QUESTIONS: Discuss the follow questions as a class:
1. How do Chinese New Year celebrations differ today than from traditional celebrations many years ago?
2. What is considered good luck or bad luck around Chinese New Year?
3. How are Chinese New Year celebrations similar to Christmas and New Year’s celebrations in other parts of the world?
4. How are Chinese New Year celebrations not similar to Christmas and New Year’s celebrations in other parts of the world?
5. What do you like most about Chinese New Year?
6. What do you like least about Chinese New Year?
7. What are the 5 most important things to tell a foreigner about Chinese New Year?

3. REVIEW: Review the concepts learned during the session.

Bernard Madoff

From Times Online

December 12, 2008

Wall Street legend Bernard Madoff arrested over '$50 billion Ponzi scheme'

(AP)

Bernard L Madoff reportedly told FBI agents that his fund was a 'giant Ponzi scheme'

Tim Reid, Washington

Some of America's wealthiest socialites were facing ruin tonight after the arrest of a Wall Street legend accused of the largest investor swindle ever blamed on a single individual.

Shock and panic spread through the country clubs of Palm Beach and Long Island after Bernard L Madoff, a trading powerbroker for over four decades, allegedly confessed to a massive fraud that will cost his wealthy investors at least $50 billion, perhaps the largest swindle in Wall Street history.

Mr Madoff, 70, a former Nasdaq stock chairman, was apparently turned in by his two sons and arrested on Thursday morning at his Manhattan apartment by the FBI.

Andrew Calamari, a senior enforcement official at New York's Securities and Exchange Commission, described the scheme as "a stunning fraud that appears to be of epic proportions".

The FBI's criminal complaint states that when two federal agents arrived at Mr Madoff's apartment, he told them: "There is no innocent explanation". The agents say that he told them "he paid investors with money that wasn't there," that he was "broke" and that he expected to go to jail.

The FBI claims that three senior employees of Mr Madoff's investment firm - once a towering presence on Wall Street - turned up at his apartment on Wednesday to ask questions about the company's solvency. Two of them are believed to be his sons, Andrew and Mark, who have worked for their father for two decades.

Mr Madoff told them that he was "finished", that he had "absolutely nothing", and that "it's all just one big lie". He said the investment arm of his firm was "basically a giant Ponzi scheme," and that it had been insolvent for years.

A Ponzi scheme, named after the swindler Charles Ponzi, is a fraudulent investment operation that pays abnormally high returns to investors paid from money put into the scheme by subsequent investors, rather from real profits generated by share trading.

The FBI complaint states that Mr Madoff told his sons he believed the losses from his scheme could exceed $50 billion. If that is the case, his fraud would be far greater than past Ponzi schemes and easily the greatest swindle perpetrated by one man.

There has been scepticism for years on Wall Street over how Mr Madoff managed to pay such consistently high returns, in good investor years and bad.

The FBI alleges that he "paid certain investors purported returns on investment with the principal received from other, different investors, which resulted in losses of billions of dollars."

Such schemes inevitably collapse, and Mr Madoff found himself to be no exception. Because of the stricken economy, and growing suspicions about his business, the FBI says that earlier this month Mr Madoff told one of his sons that clients had requested $7 billion in investments to be returned - and that he was struggling to pay them.

Mr Madoff ran the wealthy investment arm of his business, Bernard L Madoff Investment Securities, secretly and separately from the main trading and market-making floor of his offices, with records kept "under lock and key".

His sons had no involvement in it but told federal agents their father had been under "great stress". Mr Madoff founded his firm in 1960 with $5,000 he had made being a lifeguard on Long Island.

Mr Madoff has been charged with a single count of securities fraud. He declined to enter a plea in Manhattan's US District Court and was released on $10 million bail. He faces up to 20 years in jail and a $5 million fine if convicted. His lawyer, Dan Horwitz, said his client was "a person of integrity. He intends to fight to get through this unfortunate event."

Many of his investors came from the enormously wealthy enclaves of Florida's Palm Beach and New York's Long Island, where people had invested billions of dollars in Mr Madoff's firm for decades.

He was a fixture on the Palm Beach social scene, and was a member of some of its most exclusive clubs, including the Palm Beach Country Club and Boca Rio Golf Club, where he drummed up much of his business.

One investor told The Wall Street Journal: "This is going to kill so many people. It's absolutely awful."

Ira Roth, from New Jersey, said his family - including his 86-year-old mother-in-law - had $1 million invested, and that he was "in a state of panic".

Susan Leavitt, from Florida's Tampa Bay, said she had millions invested, and paid in another $500,000 earlier this year. "That was my nest egg for my children, and my future," she said.

Fraud

TOPIC: Fraud

WARM-UP: What things come to mind when you think of fraud or stealing other people’s money? What do you know about fraud? What does fraud mean to you?

1. Spend one minute writing down all of the different words you associate with the word ‘fraud’. Share your words with other students and talk about them. Together, put the words into different categories.

OBJECTIVES: Today, we will focus on learning about Bernard Madoff and the $50 billion investment fraud that has been reported in the news recently. This is important to learn because it is one of the largest frauds in history and affects people around the world. This session will help you understand the news, events, vocabulary, and conversations that take place about the topic. By the end of this class, you will be able to comfortably talk to visitors, co-workers, and friends about the Bernard Madoff fraud in the news.

LEARNING ACTIVITIES:

A: BEFORE READING:

1. TRUE / FALSE: Look at the article’s headline and guess whether these sentences are true (T) or false (F):

2. Bernard Madoff was well-known. T/F
3. Bernard Madoff was responsible for $50 billion. T/F
4. Bernard Madoff handed over a Ponzi scheme. T/F
5. Bernard Madoff worked out a Ponzi scheme. T/F
6. Bernard Madoff was charged with a $50 billion fraud. T/F

2. SYNONYMS: Match the following synonyms from the article:

Massive	Drummed up
Swindle	Struggling
Allegedly	Enormously
Stricken	Epic proportions
Socialites	Apparently
Generated	Fraud
Hugely	Exclusive

B: WHILE READING:

1. Read the article from the Time Magazine, “Wall Street legend Bernard Madoff arrested over '$50 billion Ponzi scheme'.
2. Circle each time that you see the term, “Ponzi scheme”.
3. Circle or underline all of the words that you do not understand.

C: AFTER READING:

1. Vocabulary:
2. Discuss the most important vocabulary terms as a class, (including the ones that you circled in B2 above).
1. Legend (n.): somebody famous admired for a skill or talent
2. Ponzi scheme (n.): A pyramid scheme, or a scam that pays returns to early investors out of the money paid by later investors rather than from profit. New investors must continue to be drawn in to pay off earlier investors.
3. Socialites (n.): somebody who is well known in fashionable society
4. Swindle (v. and n.): to cheat somebody of something
5. Powerbroker (n.): A person or group having the ability to influence important decisions, especially in public policy, politics, and business
6. Massive, (adj.): very large
7. Fraud, (n.): is the act of convincing another to believe information that is not true for personal gain or to damage another, (most commonly money).
8. Scheme, (n.): a secret plan, or plot
9. Epic proportions, (adj.): very large
10. Solvency, (adj.): is the ability to pay debts with available cash
11. Insolvent, (adj. and n.): a company can no longer operate and is undergoing bankruptcy.
12. Fraudulent, (adj.): not honest, true, or fair, and meant to deceive, (lie to) people
13. Abnormally, (adv.): unusually, strangely
14. Subsequent, (adj.): later, following
15. Generated, (v.): made, or created
16. Perpetrated, (v.): to have done something wrong
17. Skepticism, (n.): a doubting attitude
18. Purported, (adj.): To have or present the false appearance of being.
19. Inevitably, (adv.): impossible to avoid, happens certainly
20. Collapse, (v.): to fail suddenly
21. Stricken, (adj.): very badly affected by trouble or misfortune
22. Suspicions, (n.): doubts, feelings of something wrong
23. Securities, (n.): documents traded on stock exchanges that show debt or ownership, (a stock certificate or a bond).
24. Bail, (n.): a sum of money deposited to get an accused person out of jail and to guarantee that person's appearance in court at a later date. If the person doesn’t appear in court on the date set, the money is kept.
25. Integrity, (adj.): honesty
26. Enclaves, (n.): special area or group of people

3. Questions: Prepare a list of questions about Bernard Madoff and the article that you read. Ask other participants your questions and write down their answers. Then share your findings with the class.

4. Similar stories: Who else do you know who committed frauds, or stole a lot of money? What happened? Fill out the chart below with a partner. Then, share it with the class.

NAME of person or company	What happened?

5. Punishment: What would be an appropriate punishment for Bernard Madoff?

Write down your ideas with a partner. Then, share these with the class.

6. Fraud prevention: What are ways that people could avoid losing money from frauds, scams, or swindles? Write down your ideas with a partner. Then, share these with the class.

7. Discussion: Use the list of questions provided by the facilitator to have a discussion about Bernard Madoff and fraud with other class participants. Try to use the vocabulary terms already discussed above.

OTHER RESOURCES:

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/Extra/5-ways-to-avoid-a-ponzi-scheme.aspx