Key Skill – Understanding
DEVELOPING YOUR READING SKILLS
KEY SKILL – UNDERSTANDING
WHAT DID YOU DO THEN AND HOW
DID YOU FUND IT?
I spent a couple of years convincing a factory and an
advertising agency to work with me. I eventually got
production up and running: we moved into the factory
in 2006 and created the brand that we have now. I had a
little bit of money that I had saved myself and got a loan
from the Prince’s Trust for £5,000.
ACTIVITY 1: UNDERSTANDING AN INTERVIEW:
FRASER DOHERTY, ‘HOW I SET UP SUPERJAM’
The activities in this section will help develop your skills in understanding texts.
This interview is all about Fraser Doherty from Edinburgh who started a business when
he was a teenager. The interview comes from a website about setting up new businesses.
WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO START
MAKING JAM AT THE AGE OF 14?
I was really excited by my gran’s jam and having always
enjoyed it growing up, thought that it would be fun to
make some myself. I thought that if people liked it then
there would be a way for me to sell it and make some
extra pocket money, but that was as far as my ambitions
went at that point.
What inspired Fraser to start making jam?
What did Fraser hope to do by selling his jam?
DID YOU THEN BEGIN TO SELL
THE JAM?
Yes, we began selling the jam door to door in the area,
and in some local shops and farmers’ markets. People
just seemed to really love the product and I started to
get some press attention and I found myself on page
three of the Edinburgh Evening News when I was 15.
Other shops started calling me up about the jam and
the whole thing just grew and grew. It soon got to the
point where I was making hundreds of jars of jam every
week in my parents’ kitchen, so they were struggling to
get in there to cook dinner!
Name two places where Fraser sold his jam.
Why were Fraser’s parents ‘struggling to
cook dinner’?
WHAT WAS THE NEXT STEP?
It got to the stage when I couldn’t go much further with
the product without moving into a factory. At that point
I realized that I wanted to try and make a career out of
it. I did some research and found that sales of jam had
been in decline for the past couple of decades. This was
partly because jam is traditionally very unhealthy and
has an old fashioned image. I figured if I could create a
healthier and modern brand of jam, then maybe I could
challenge the trend of declining sales. I came up with a
way of making jam completely from fruit juice, not using
anything artificial or adding any sugar. Then I decided
that I was going to try and sell the product to the big
supermarkets.
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What did Fraser’s research tell him about sales
of jam?
What two things did Fraser do to make his jam
healthier than other jams?
DON’T FORGET
Any of the ‘Tips for reading longer texts’ on the previous page will
help you to understand the interview. For example, skimming is a
very useful way of reading text for the first time. Read the title,
then read quickly through the whole text to get a general idea of
what it is about. Why not try skimming the interview now?
DID ALL THIS WORK PAY OFF?
SAMPLE PAGES – N4 ENGLISH
After each section in this exercise, there are questions to check your understanding.
You can stop reading and answer these as you go along or you can wait until you have
read the whole interview.
How did Fraser fund his jam making business?
One supermarket agreed to try it out in their stores in
March 2007. In the first day in one of the Edinburgh
stores they sold 1,500 jars, which was more jam than
they would normally sell in a month. They had never
seen anything like it. Then another supermarket
phoned up out of the blue and said that they would like
to stock it, then another; now all of the major retailers
stock SuperJam.
Why was it surprising that the first supermarket
sold 1,500 jars on the first day?
WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE
ABOUT RUNNING A BUSINESS?
Go out and give things a shot. Don’t be afraid to try
things and see what you learn. On a practical level
the best help that I’ve had has been from mentors.
Entrepreneurs should look to anyone that has run
a business or a charity, someone who has been
there and done it, and can provide you with a great
opportunity to learn.
What two pieces of advice does Fraser give about
running a business?
Why does he think a mentor is a good idea?
WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD
FOR SUPERJAM?
The business is growing at a really fast pace, and there
are supermarkets that don’t yet stock the product but
are interested in it. There are lots of other fruits that
we can make jam from to expand the range in terms
of flavours, and hopefully we can expand into other
countries too.
Give one way in which Fraser wants to expand
the business.
(Interview adapted from http://www.newbusiness.co.uk/articles/entrepreneurs/fraser-doherty-how-i-set-superjam)
THINGS TO DO AND THINK ABOUT
Did you understand the interview? Were there words and phrases you didn’t understand?
Work with a partner and share any words or phrases or sections you were not sure of.
Help each other to work out the meaning, with the help of a dictionary if you need one!
You could work together to answer the questions, too.
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Key Skill – Analysing
DEVELOPING YOUR READING SKILLS
KEY SKILL – ANALYSING
ACTIVITY 1: ANALYSING AN ADVERTISEMENT:
SCOTT’S PORAGE OATS
The activities in this section will help develop your skills in analysing texts.
First, we will read an advertisement to understand the techniques advertisers use to
grab the reader’s attention.
Then, you are going to create an advertisement for one of Fraser’s Superjam products.
• When do you think this advertisement was published?
Give your reasons.
• Who is the advertisement aimed at? Young or old people?
Healthy or unhealthy people? Give your reasons.
• Talk about the photographs used in the advertisement and
why they have been used.
• Talk about the words and phrases used in the text of the
advertisement (this is what advertisers call the ‘copy’).
Look up any words you don’t know.
Some of the techniques used in advertisements are shown in
the table below with some examples.
Technique
Explanation
Examples
Alliteration
Repeating sounds at the
Tempting and tasty
beginnings of words/phrases on toast!
Adjectives
Describing words and phrases delicious
used to describe a product/ juicy
topic/effect
healthy
Punctuation Using punctuation for effect
THE car company!
Repetition
Repeating words, phrases or
ideas
Yum, yum, yum
Very very good for you
Rhetorical
question
A question which engages
the reader and makes him/
her think about the answer
Do you want to eat
more healthily?
‘rule of
three’
Using three words or ideas
or numbers
Nutritious, natural
and new
Very tasty, very fruity
and very good for you
Using data
Using figures, statistics,
numbers, scientific
information
1 million jars sold every
week!
100% natural
Strap line
An advertising slogan
Just do it!
Visuals
Using fonts, underlining,
graphics, illustrations,
diagrams for effect
A HEARTY breakfast
‘‘‘Porage’’ or ‘’porridge’’ what’s the difference?’. If you look up a dictionary, you
will find lots of alternative spellings for this word, for example, porrage and
parritch. They all mean the same – oatmeal boiled with water or milk. Yum!
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Try this activity with a partner. One is done for you as an example. Read the
advertisement for Scott’s porage oats and find some of these techniques.
DON’T FORGET
Technique
Find three rhetorical questions
Remember that analysing
a text means looking at
HOW a text has been
written. Look back at the
introduction to this chapter
for more information about
analysing texts.
Find three examples of the ‘rule of three’
SAMPLE PAGES – N4 ENGLISH
First, have a look at the advert for Scott’s Porage Oats.
With a partner, discuss the advertisement and answer the
questions below:
ACTIVITY 2: SPOT THE TECHNIQUE
Find an example of scientific data
Find three examples of punctuation used for effect
Find three adjectives
Example
1 What’s all this about porage?
2
3
1
2
3
DON’T FORGET
Remember that sometimes
several techniques can be used
at the same time! For example,
‘Is Scott’s expensive’ is an
example of a rhetorical question
and ‘rule of three’.
1
2
3
1
2
3
Find an example of repetition
What is the strap line (slogan)
Keep a look out for any adverts you come across. Why not try this on the way
home today?
ACTIVITY 3: CREATE AN ADVERT
Now for a different type of activity. One of the best ways to learn about a technique is
to use it yourself. So you are going to create an advertisement for Fraser’s Superjam.
Use the product/picture below. Read Fraser’s website again to get ideas you might
want to use in your advert.
THINGS TO DO AND THINK ABOUT
Watch a video clip about print adverts at http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/
analysing-printed-adverts/11104.html. This will give you lots of ideas about how
writers create advertisements.
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