Teaching Point: Formal & Informal Paraphrasing - Transformation

IH World Level: 8

The following statements were made by two people: a researcher writing about football hooliganism (nos.
1-4) and a criminal (nos. 5-8). Please report the gist of what they say. When you report statements 1-4 you
are a football hooligan, so you will also have to paraphrase, replacing the underlined formal items with
more informal or slang ones. When you report nos. 5-8 you are a lawyer, so you will have to paraphrase
replacing the underlined informal/slang items with formal ones.

1. “Hooligans tend to disturb the peace mainly when they are under the influence.”

He figures we …

2. “They seem to abuse particularly young women and men that they perceive as weaker.”

He reckons …

3. “And they vandalise luxurious or expensive shops from which, however, they seldom steal stock.”

He says …

4. “When strongly built men or police appear on the scene, hooligans are sure to leave as fast as

they can.”

He bets we …

5. “First up, we didn’t mean no harm to the old biddy.”

First of all, the defendant assured …

6. “But me mates nicked her bag and she went off screaming her head off.”

However, he reported …

7. “So I booted her down to shut her up. Looks like that’s why she croaked then.”

He admitted …

8. “That’s why the coppers nabbed us. ‘Cos she hollered like that. We mucked up!...”

He implied that …

© International House World Organisation Created by: Ilinca Stroe

Teaching Point: Formal & Informal Paraphrasing - Transformation
IH World Level: 8

Teachers’ Notes

Key (please note that other correct variations are possible)

1 He figures we go off the rails / raise hell / go wild when we’re on the booze.

2 He reckons we get rough with / give hell to birds / chicks and wusses / wimps.

3 He says we trash posh and pricey shops, but we don’t lift stuff.

4 He bets we hightail it when big fellas / blokes or coppers show up.

5 First of all, the defendant assured us that he and his accomplices did not intend to injure the old woman.

6 However, he reported that when his accomplices stole the woman’s bag she started to shout loudly.

7 He admitted that the old lady may have deceased because he had assaulted her to reduce her to
silence.

8 He implied that they failed, were caught and arrested because the victim had screamed so loudly.

Variations

SS role play a conversation between the researcher (standard English) and the hooligan (informal/slang).

SS act out a scene where a prosecutor (standard English) interrogates a criminal offender (informal/slang).

SS play the vocab association game: S1 says a formal word/expression, S2 says an associated
informal/colloquial word, S3 says an associated formal word, and so on. When the associations are not
clear, SS have to explain; if the explanation is not considered satisfactory by the majority, the S goes out of
the game. If a S takes longer than 30 seconds to come up with a word, they go out of the game.

For example: S1 - defendant, S2 - to pinch something, S3 – investigation, S4 - cops

© International House World Organisation Created by: Ilinca Stroe