15th July

Life as a Spy

A
1. Do you think the media portrayal of the life of a spy is realistic?
2. Do you think in this day and age it’s still necessary to have spies?
3. What do you imagine it would be like to be a spy?

B. VOCABULARY Discuss the meanings of the following words: 

double agent
decoy
covert operation
intelligence
espionage
counter intelligence
counter espionage
conspiracy
classified information
clandestine operation
blown
bug
infiltration
polygraph
sleeper
terminated

C. LISTENING
Watch the following video clip and answer the questions, ‘Hank Crumpton: Life as a Spy
 http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/hank-crumpton-life-as-a-spy/

1. What was the mission of the CIA in Afghanistan, and how did they go about doing it?
2. Why was the predator drone armed?
3. What are the current concerns of the CIA?
4. What are the difficulties of being a spy?
5. What are the characteristics of a good spy?
6. Do you think that what Hank Crumpton says is true?

D. MORE VOCABULARY
Match the collocations that you heard in the listening: 
1. inadvertant                                    a. the Taliban
2. murky                                           b. an alliance
3. forge                                             c. eat dog
4. topple                                           d. world
5. dog                                               e. the record straight
6. overthrow                                     f. danger
7. potent                                           g. mistakes
8. set                                                 h. a regime

E. INTERVIEW

You work for an intelligence agency, and you will be interviewing a candidate. Using words that you have used so far, write some questions that you would like to use during the interview. For example: If you needed to infiltrate a drug cartel, how would you do it? If you needed to set up a decoy, what would you do? Once you have written about 10 questions, you will interview each other for the job.