Scenario An airplane flying to the UK crashlanded (=fell) in the South Pacific Ocean Now the airplane is floating on top of the water There are nine survivors (=people still alive) out of the sixteen passengers (=travellers) on the airplane The crash site (=the place of the accident) is about one and a half days of rowing (=moving the boat with human power) from the nearest land The survivors can use a life raft (=a little boat) with room (=big enough) for four persons Your group must make a decision about who those four persons will be You have about 30 minutes to decide before the aircraft sinks The brief bios of the nine survivors Tanja McFly (25) Tanja is divorced from (=opposite of “married to”) her husband with a 5-year-old son She is a waitress in a night club Because she works at night, her mother has to look after (=take care of) her son She wanted to become a doctor but his son’s unplanned birth and his divorce ruined (=killed) her plans She has some internal (=inside) injuries and her stomach hurts badly (=very much) Andy Kiss (34) Andy is your pilot She did a great job and the airplane could land all right and did not break apart (=into little pieces) She is single (=no husband) and has no children She started her career (=working) in the US Navy She received training in survival techniques (=tricks about how to survive) while there She has serious (=bad) injuries on her left arm, which she can’t feel or move Bekele Hagos (21) Bekele is a sophomore (=2nd year student) at SOTE Medical University in Budapest He wants to move back to his birthplace, Ethiopia after he finished medical university He speaks perfect English thanks to his English language education He has very poor (=bad) eye sight, but his glasses got broken in the crash (=accident) He has no children He was flying to the US to meet his American girlfriend in San Diego Tulugaq Irniq (15) Tulugaq was born into a tiny Inuit tribe (=group of natives) that speaks Inuqa, a language very different than the rest of the (=the other) Inuit tribes There are only 30 people who speak this language The tribe gets smaller every year, so the language may soon die out (=be dead) Tulugaq, whose name means ‘raven’ (=a black bird), was flying to California after marrying a linguist (=a language scientist) who was doing field work in her tribe She speaks no English Frank Smith (59) Frank became a hippy in the late sixties (=1965-69), because he loved the new ideals of less shopping and free love He still lives (=didn’t leave) in a hippy community to this day (=today) He owns (=has) only a tiny mobile home, an old chopper (=motorbike) and a small piece of land He and his wife sell organic vegetables and make pottery (=plates and mugs) He has one grown-up (=adult) child They haven’t spoken for years He was flying to San Diego to meet him again to mend (=repair) their broken relationship Meg Polanski (10) Meg is an only child and very hard to control (=she’s a bad girl) She lives with her mother only She has a full-time babysitter, who she hates She is bullying (=hurting) her classmates in school, but they are too scared (=afraid) to tell the teachers She wants her mother to buy her anything she wants She loves to watch TV Agent Malcolm (32) Agent Malcolm has two children and works for the CIA’s anti- terrorism arm His job is to listen to private phone calls secretly to find terrorists He is a psychologist and nowhe is in Iraq interrogating (=talking to) US terror suspects (people who may be criminals) in a secret prison The public (=everyone in a country) or their relatives (=mother, father, etc.) don’t know that the suspects are there Marianne Polanski (38) Marianne is Meg Polanski’s mother She left her boyfriend, the father of her child, three years ago She has had more than one boyfriend since then (=after that) She is the boss (=the director) of the marketing department of a multinational company She’s a chain smoker (=always smokes) and works all the time She often gets home late, and the babysitter takes care of Meg until she’s not home Marianne can’t discipline (=control) Meg Thomas Waldorf-Astoria (59) Born into the rich Waldorf-Astoria family, he owns fifteen large factories (=companies) on many continents with more than 55 thousand employees (=people working for the company) In the crisis (=bad times) today he wants to modernize his company instead of firing (=kicking out) people If he dies, the oldest of his children will be the new boss The son wants to fire 30 thousand employees to save money and pay less in salaries (=the money you get) to the rest of the employees TEACHER’S NOTES Aim: This exercise may enable student groups to discover how they work together; their strengths and how they need to improve Time required: Thirty minutes as an icebreaker, one to one and a half hours with debriefing, depending on the number of groups Resources: A room where small groups can form; flip chart or overhead projector plus pens Procedure: Give the students the handout of the scenario and the brief bio of the nine survivors and make clear the 30 minute time limit imposed Explain that each group will have five minutes in which to report back and justify their decision Reporting back is not essential but gives the students the opportunity to explain their decisions If there is a large number of groups, an alternative would be to record their choices on paper for display Carry out a debriefing of how the group had functioned The questions you ask will depend upon the learning you want the students to achieve from the exercise but should encourage reflection on their experience Examples - How did they reach their decision? What roles did group members adopt? Did they listen to each other? What have they learned about the functions of a group? What would they next time?