SPEAK UP IN CLASS WORKSHEETS

Source: www.speakup.com.br

Before starting to do the exercise, have a look at this entry: http://englishtips-self-taught.blogspot.com/2011/07/amy-macdonald.html

Amy MacDonald – For the Record (C1)

A - Before you start, talk to a partner.

1. What do you know about Amy MacDonald?

2. Do you like her music?

3. Can you name any other Scottish pop stars?

4. Have you seen or heard Lady Gaga? If so, what do you think of her?

B - Listen and answer

Read these statements. Then listen (without reading) and write T (True) or F (False).

1. Amy MacDonald spent her childhood in Glasgow.

2. About three million of her singles have been sold.

3. She claims that a conversation with fans on Twitter was misrepresented by the press.

4. Amy says she’s in debt to her record company at the moment.

5. She thinks her anonymity is due to her lifestyle.

6. She talks about a pop star who wore a wig to avoid being recognised while travelling on a plane.

C - Read and answer

Read the article and answer the questions with a partner.

1. Why is Amy’s commercial success surprising?

2. What did she mean when she said she hadn’t made any money from selling her CD?

3. What does she say about her financial situation at the moment?

4. Why don’t people recognise her?

5. What is Amy’s attitude to Lady Gaga’s behaviour during the flight to the north of Sweden?

6. What should Lady Gaga have done, according to Amy?

D - Learn it! Use it!

Complete these sentences with words from the glossary. (You may have to adapt the expression in some way; e.g. change the subject, or change from singular to plural.)

1. Having one of her poems published in a magazine was a great __________ for my aunt.

2. You can’t go for a job interview in that __________ suit. You’ll have to buy a new one.

3. Let’s put the __________  _________. It wasn’t me who let your secret out.

4. If you don’t update your anti-virus regularly you’re just __________ disaster.

5. My dad always __________ about the programmes on TV but he watches them all the same.

6. With a credit card it’s easy to spend too much and get into __________ .

7. Tom thinks he’s something special. I hate the way he __________ himself.

8. Most of the company’s __________ comes from its sales of electrical goods.

E - Ready for CAE? (Paper 3 Part 2)

Complete the text. Use only one word in each space.

There are quite a (1)__________ similarities between Amy MacDonald and Paolo Nutini. They were (2)__________ born in Scotland in 1987. Paolo (3)__________ up in a place near Glasgow and so (4)__________ Amy. Then there’s the way in (5)__________ they took the music world by storm. One difference, (6)__________ , is that they support different Glasgow football teams. (7)__________ a Catholic, Nutini naturally supports Celtic, (8)__________ MacDonald is a Protestant and is therefore a Rangers fan, (9)__________ the fact that her boyfriend Steve Lovell used to play (10)__________ another Glasgow team, Partick Thistle.

It’s now four years (11)__________ Amy signed a record contract at the age of 18 and in that time she has gone from (12)__________ an unknown teenage singer-songwriter to an international star, but she says she doesn’t see herself (13)__________ famous. Perhaps this is why she refuses to behave (14)__________ a celebrity and prefers to be anonymous. And (15)__________ her album sales have made her wealthy, she still lives in a small town just outside Glasgow.

Talk about it

In pairs or groups.

1. Do you agree with Amy MacDonald that a lot of celebrities like being followed around by the press?

2. Why do you think so many people are interested in reading about celebrities in gossip magazines?

3. It has been said that we live in a “celebrity society” in which gossip and fame equal power. Do you agree?

Amy MacDonald

Source: of the picture  meninasnorock.blogspot.com


Source: www.speakup.com.br
Standard: British Accent
Speaker: Justin Ratcliff
Language level: C1 Advanced


Amy MacDonald

FOR THE RECORD

      A few months ago Speak Up featured an interview with the pop star Paolo Nutini. Nutini was born in Scotland in 1987 and so as Amy MacDonald, who has similarly taken the music world by storm.

      Both artists grew up near Glasgow. Nutini is from Paisley, while MacDonald is from  Bishopbriggs. The difference is that Nutini is a Catholic and so his favourite football team is Celtic. MacDonald on the other hand is a Protestant and support Rangers, while her English boyfriend, Steve Lovell, used to play for relatively minor Glasgow team, Partick Thistle.

MONEY AND MUSIC…

      In terms of music, Amy MacDonald made her recording debut in 2007 with the album This is the Life, which contained the hit single of the same name. The album sold three million singles. This is a remarkable achievement at a time when the music industry is clearly in crisis. And her sophomore album. A Curious Thing came out in March (2010). And yet, in spite of her commercial success, Amy MacDonald is reported as saying that she “hasn’t seen a penny” of the revenue, from her sales. We asked her to put the record straight.

AMY MACDONALD

(Scottish accent):

People reported that completely differently from what I said. It was actually a conversation on Twitter that I was having with fans, just people that were asking questions. And I was just answering them. And they were asking about album sales, and I never said that I’d never made a penny. What I said was that I hadn’t made any money from selling the actual CD. And that’s very normal, because the massive amount of cost that it requires to release an album. So, before you’ve even put it in the shops, you’re in a huge amount of debt to your record label, because they so kindly give you the money, so that you can live for the next year! So you’re in that debt, you’re in the debt of every penny that they spent on advertising, promotion, which obviously stacked right up. So you have to sell, I think about three million before you start earning on the album sales. So I think I’m like dead even now, like I don’t owe them anything, but obviously things are slowing down now, so there’s not really any album sales, happening. So that’s what that meant: I never meant that I was poor, or anything like that!

CELEBRITY

And how she is handling her celebrity?

Amy MacDonald

To be honest, I don’t see myself as a famous. And the whole fame thing I could take it or leave it. I’ve not really any interest. I just like music, and I like being a musician, and, for me, I think that it’s good that I’ve managed to have this very successful album, but I can still be completely anonymous because I don’t have the big beehive or I don’t flaunt myself in magazines, so people don’t really know what you look like. I think that’s a good way to be. I think they can have the voice and see the CD, but they don’t really know what you look like in a real-life scenario. So it’s good for me!

AS FOR LADY GAGA…

And she doesn’t seem to have problems with paparazzi!

Amy MacDonald:

But I think that  a lot of people actually court it. The one example that I know of was I was on a tiny flight with Lady Gaga, towards the north of Sweden. So there was, one flight a day to his place from Stockholm, and it was a festival. So everyone that was playing was on the same flight. So she was on the flight, and it was like she changed her wig three times in a hour flight, right? And it’s like: “Why else are you doing that? “Like and this is the thing. Like if she was wearing what I wearing what I was wearing, i.e. a hat and a pair of scruffy trousers and a jumper, nobody would have known who she was! But because she came out with three different wigs, one which was up to here, basically a bra and a pair of leather trousers and like boots that are that high, people know who she is instantly. And it’s just like: “Well, don’t moan about people following was wearing, nobody would even recognize you!”