Death Penalty - For or Against? - Preparation for your debate

Hey,

today tried to find arguments in favour of the death penalty and arguments against it. Here is what we have come down to:

For

- murders and rapes are atrocious crimes
- crime repetition
- killers deserve to be killed if their action was intentional and premeditated
- criminals should face the consequences of their action
- it's an "example" = it's a deterrent for criminals
- there's a natural desire for revenge - anger
- society must stop crime
- an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth

Against

- innocence ? = unfair -> judicial mistakes
- people can change (= no second chance)
- no one deserves to be killed
- the death sentence is not "good" punishment; criminals don't really pay for their crimes
- how to face the consequences of your actions if you're dead?
- we can't decide who lives or dies; we are not God
- the judge is also a murderer
- jail for life is harder psychologically
- why are there different laws in France and in the US? is justice too tough?

Then you had to listen to some opinions from a tape. You had to spot if the arguments were for or against and add some more arguments to your list. You can listen to the document again below:

Finally, and only with the 1st group unfortunately, we had time to listen to all of the arguments for and against that we had listed and repeat them in order to have the correct pronunciation. You can listen to the documents again below and practise:

For:

Against:

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Link words:

Remember that if you don't speak on Friday for the final debate, you will get a zero... :s You don't want it to happen, do you...?

HW: get prepared for the debate on Friday + Monday= lettre à rendre (avec enveloppe timbrée à 0€87 pour pouvoir l'envoyer à l'international) + Compréhension écrite d'une heure pour finir la séquence. Je relèverai également vos classeurs ce jour-là pour les noter. Il faut impérativement qu'ils soient bien classés et que vous ayez fait des fiches pour tous les onglets de ce classeur en plus de la leçon bien tenue et mise en valeur (words, grammar, methodology, phonetics, civilization, tests). Par ailleurs, vous aurez bientôt un nouveau contrôle de vocabulaire pour rattraper le dernier auquel vous avez tous eu des résultats misérables...

And remember, practice makes perfect!

Files:

Download the "Can you... argue your case?" worksheet here.