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=**// Resource 1: //** ABC News (2009) //Behind The News “Uluru Uproar”// Retrieved 24 September 2009 from [] =



The ABC produces a weekly news and a current affairs TV show that is focused at school aged children, the BTN (Behind The News) news clip ‘Uluru Uproar’ is about the national debate on climbing Uluru in the Northern Territory. The tag line for this article is: Uluru attracts about 350,000 tourists each year but a proposed plan to close it to climbers has a lot of people fired up. This resource is an excellent starting point for the introduction to people’s relationship with place and their interactions with the environment. Some of the key issues that are raised in this resource are the cultural values of Uluru (significance to the traditional owners), the natural heritage of Uluru, the environmental impact that climbing has on the rock and the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, the ramifications to the tourist industry and the rights and responsibilities of the stakeholders involved. Using this resource as a stimulus, students will be participating in a semi structured debate which will develop their talking and listening skills, as well as increase their awareness of this contentious issue. Whilst this is a multimodal text, the grammatical elements of multimodality are not going to be explored using this resource. Instead, this resource will be used to assist students in developing their talking and listening skills via a semi structured debate and the grammatical features of a discussion will also be explored. Students will have an opportunity to observe how the discussion begins with a statement outlining the issue to be discussed and providing some background information. As shown here in the transcript, this resource very clearly sets the scene for the discussion: //“It's the rock in the middle of the desert that attracts 350,000 people each year, but soon those visiting Uluru, in the centre of Australia, might not get to see as much of it as they'd like. A plan has recommended closing the rock to all climbers. That's got a lot of people fired up... so let's take a look at those on each side of this ascending argument”.//
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This resource outlines the views of many of the stakeholders in this issue, including Aboriginal Elders, government, tourists, tour guide operators and park rangers. As students view this resource and watch the discussion unfold, they will be given an opportunity to look at some of the other grammatical features of the discussion including text connectives and how they are used to progress the arguments. Some examples from this resource include: //On top of; But; Finally; Despite; At this stage;// etc.

According to Jones (1996, pp. 13), oral language activities will only assist in the development of writing skills when the spoken language that the task elicits is close to written language. As debates often utilise formal language, and the language offered in this resource is also quite formal i.e. uses passive voice, varies modality, uses broad vocabulary etc, students will be well scaffolded in this activity for writing activities which are to follow. Talking for performance, such as in a debate, is an important aspect of talking and listening and allows students to become familiar with identifiable generic structures (Jones, 1996, pp. 15).

This resource also contains many elements of visual grammar which could be explored in another lesson. However, some key points could be raised in the lesson to assist students in understanding the meaning of the text. The visual images behind the presenter are used to add weight to the discussion points and increase viewer understanding. For example, when outlining the requests of Indigenous people not to climb the rock, the news reader is holding the sign as if he was in a protest, adding to the sense of tension and debate over this issue.