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News-based English language activities from the global newspaper

November 2009
Level ≥ Lower intermediate
Style ≥ Lesson plan
Welcome to the Guardian Weekly’s special news-based materials to support learners and teachers of English.
Each month, the Guardian Weekly newspaper selects topical news articles that can be used to practise English
language skills. The materials are graded for two levels: advanced and lower intermediate. These worksheets
can be downloaded free from guardianweekly.co.uk/learningenglish/. You can also find more advice for
teachers and learners on the site.

Fugitive’s Facebook habit leads to arrest


Materials prepared by Janet Hardy-Gould

Instructions
Lesson focus: listening, reading, writing
Materials sheet: copies of the article
Time: 60 minutes

1 Discuss as a class what Facebook is. Establish key the notes. Then give out copies of the article. Students
vocabulary: update (noun/verb), social networking site, read, circle the key information and check their answers.
profile. Ask: How can Facebook get you into trouble? For During class feedback encourage students to explain
example: you tell everybody at work that you’re ill but what Maxi Sopo did in their own words. 10 mins
you secretly go on holiday. Somebody sees your holiday Answers: 26, Mexico, US Police, Cameroon, bank fraud,
photos on Facebook and tells your boss. Students think February.
of further examples in pairs. Class feedback. 10 mins
4 Write up these questions and quickly go through them.
2 Tell students the article is about a fugitive called Maxi Students read the rest of the article and decide if they are
Sopo. Write the headline on the board. Ask: How did true or false. Class feedback. 10 mins
Facebook get Maxi Sopo into trouble? Students guess. a [ ] Investigators immediately found Sopo on Facebook.
5 mins b [ ] A secret service agent found a photo of Sopo
partying.
3 Write up this profile for students to copy. Check the c [ ] Sopo’s profile was open to everybody.
type of word that could go in each category. Brainstorm d [ ] One of Sopo’s friends was linked to the US justice
crimes for the “wanted for” category, include fraud. department.
e [ ] The friend told Scoville where Sopo was living.
Name: Maxi Sopo f [ ] Sopo might go to prison for a long time.
Age: __________ Answers: a F b T c F d F e T f T
In hiding in: __________
Wanted by: __________ 5 Tell students that they have been sent to prison but have
Originally from: __________ been allowed to write a short Facebook update about
Wanted for: __________ their new life. They should comment on the food, ac-
Disappeared: __________ (date) commodation, daily routine and other prisoners plus
include personal clues to show that they have written
Read the first three paragraphs of the article twice to the it. At the end, put the texts on the wall (without names)
class. Use mime and gesture to help convey meaning. or read them to the class. Students guess who wrote the
At the end of each listening, students try to complete updates. 25 mins
News-based English language activities from the global newspaper

November 2009

Materials sheet Article: Fugitive’s Facebook


habit leads to arrest
1 Some people are good at being fugitives from the police.
They stay at home, they go out in disguise or even create a
new identity. Others are not so successful.

2 Take the case of Maxi Sopo, a 26-year-old criminal who


was in hiding in Mexico from the US police. His first big
mistake was to use his Facebook page to tell his friends
about the fun he was having. In regular updates on Face-
book, Sopo said he was “living in paradise” in Mexico and
“loving it”.

3 Sopo, who arrived in the US from Cameroon in 2003,


made money by selling roses in Seattle nightclubs. Then
he moved on to bank fraud. But he soon learnt that police
were investigating him and drove a rented car to Mexico
in February.
4 Investigators looked at social networking sites such as Fa-
cebook and MySpace but they could find no sign of him at
first and couldn’t see his location in Mexico.
Wanted ... Maxi Sopo in front of luxury logos

5 Several months later, a secret service agent checked Fa-


Student tasks cebook again and suddenly found Maxi Sopo. His photo
showed him partying in front of a backdrop with BMW
1 Complete this profile:
and Courvoisier cognac logos on it.
Name: Maxi Sopo
Age: __________________________________________________________________
6 Although Sopo’s profile was private, his list of friends was
In hiding in: _______________________________________________________
not. Assistant US Attorney, Michael Scoville, who helped
Wanted by: ________________________________________________________
to find Sopo, began to look through the list. He was sur-
Originally from: _________________________________________________
prised that one friend was linked to the Mexican justice
Wanted for: _______________________________________________________
department. Scoville immediately sent a message to the
Disappeared: ____________________________________________ (date)
man.
2 After reading the article, decide if these questions are
true (T) or false (F). 7 “We figured this was a person we could probably trust to
a Investigators immediately found Sopo on Facebook. keep our inquiry discreet,” Scoville said.
b A secret service agent found a photo of Sopo
partying. 8 The official told Scoville he had met Sopo in Cancun’s
c Sopo’s profile was open to everybody. nightclubs a few times. He learned where Sopo was liv-
d One of Sopo’s friends was linked to the US justice de- ing and passed the information back to Scoville, who
partment. informed the Mexican police. They arrested Sopo last
e The friend told Scoville where Sopo was living. month.
f Sopo might go to prison for a long time.
9 If convicted of fraud, Sopo could go to prison for up to 30
years. Plenty of time to update a Facebook page.

Original article byAlexandra Topping, rewritten by


Janet Hardy-Gould

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