Listening and Viewing

: Fish 'n Chips

Approach: One to one

596k

Resources: Video of TV news item about fish and chips.

Video script: Lunch on the run, tucking into an old favourite, Kiwis devour a staggering 135,000 tonnes of fish n' chips each year. That's the same weight as nearly three Titanics. Now Auckland Health Care's launching a pilot scheme to show take-away owners how to make them healthier eating. "What we try to do is inject a little bit of nutrition into this whole package so that, fish and chips are as good and as nutritious as they can be. Reducing the fat content is the key: to do that chips must be cooked at around 180

C, properly shaken and drained for at least 1 minute. We've really got the best chips around at the moment, so, but, no, I can see there's room for improvement still, yeap." Health Care Auckland says reducing fat content by just 1% would remove 500 grams of fat a year from the average diet. We've estimated that the cost of obesity and over weight to New Zealand in health terms is over 130 million dollars a year. According to Auckland Health Care, figures show thin cut shoe string chips like these have the highest fat content of around 60%, where as thicker chips like these can have up to 50% less fat. But if you're really fat conscious cooking them yourself is the way to go. Fries you bake yourself have a fat content of between 2 and 3%.

Questions / instructions:
We're going to watch a video from the news about fish and chips. Listen carefully, and I'll ask you some questions when the video finishes. Play video

% responses

1. If all of the fish and chips that are eaten in a year in New Zealand were weighed, about how much would they weigh altogether?

135,000 tonnes
3 Titanics

1
59

12
60

2. What are three things that can be done in the take-away shops to reduce the amount of fat in chips?

cook at 180

C
cook at high temp
shake well
drain 1 minute
use thicker chips

2
8
12
20
11

25
12
35
60
15

3. Why do you think they need to cook the chips at a high temperature?

reduce fat absorbed

4. Which fries do they say have the smallest amount of fat in them?

thicker cut chips
homemade chips

45
17

57
39

5. Why do you think really thin chips have more fat than thicker chips?

answer captures key points
on right track but fuzzy

3
11

24
27

6. The man said they are trying to make chips as good and nutritious as they can.
What do you think nutritious means?

healthy / good for your health

7. What do you is think the main message in this video?

importance for health of reducing fat content
ways to reduce fat content

15
14

30
17

Overall score (out of 12): 9–12
4–8
0–3

2
44
54

70
67
13

Commentary:
This task was designed to see how well students could extract information and overall messages from a news item. Most of the content was in the soundtrack. Year 8 students performed better than year 4 students, especially on questions involving technical language (questions 1, 2), questions seeking multiple responses (question 2), and questions involving inferences (questions 3, 5, 6, 7). More than half of year 4 students had overall scores of less than 4 out of 12.

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