do a listening comprehension exercise on the Beatles
look at some vocabulary connected to culture / music
read about the Beatles
1) Discuss
It's 50 years since the Beatles released their first album Please Please Me. They recorded the whole album in only one day.
What do you know about the Beatles?
Why were they important or special?
The first track on the album was called I Saw Her Standing There
Listen. Do you like it?
2) Before you listen
You are going to listen to someone talking about why the Beatles are "special".
Here is some vocabulary from the clip. Match the words to their definitions.
3) Listen
Listen below to an interview by Nick Ellerby with Phil Alexander, the editor-in-chief of the music magazine Mojo.
Why were the Beatles special?
Here are the Beatles in November 1963 at the Royal Command Performance attended by the Queen Mother. At 04:45 John Lennon makes a request. "For our last number I'd like to ask your help. The people in the cheaper seats clap your hands. And the rest of you, if you'd just rattle your jewellery."
What would happen if you were locked in an airtight room? How long would you survive?
What would happen if a large meteorite hit the Earth?
3) Reading / Webquest
Read the questions for each text and then find the answers
1) What would happen if you stopped sleeping?
Look at these questions
What happens if you don't get enough sleep?
What are the 3 theories of why we sleep?
What do you think happens after three days of no sleep
What would happen if you were forced to stay awake?
Now read here to find the answers
To answer this, we need to look at some basics about sleep. The amount you need depends on your age. A newborn baby might sleep 20 hours a day while a 4-year old might need only 12 hours. The average for 10-year-olds is 10 hours a day and most adults seem to need seven to nine hours of sleep a night. And the average senior citizen can often get by with just six or seven hours a day. Whatever amount you need, you know you feel great after a good night of sleep. But, why is that? Does anything important happen during sleep? Yes, scientists have found that two key things happen during sleep: growth hormone in children is secreted and chemicals important to the immune system are secreted. If you don't get enough sleep, you're more prone to disease, and a child's growth can be stunted by sleep deprivation.
Beyond the immune system and growth hormone factors, no one really knows why it is that we sleep, but there are all kinds of theories, including the following. For one, sleep gives the body a chance to repair muscles and other tissues, replace aging or dead cells. Also, sleep gives the brain a chance to organize and archive memories (dreaming is probably a part of that process). Furthermore, sleep may be a way of recharging the brain. And finally, in very early times, sleep made sense in that people couldn't really do anything in the dark anyway, so they might as well "turn off" and save the energy.
A good way to understand why you sleep is to look at what happens when we don't get enough. If you've ever pulled an all-nighter, you know that missing one night of sleep isn't fatal. A person will generally be irritable during the next day and will become tired easily or will be totally wired because of adrenalin. If a person misses two nights of sleep, it gets worse. Concentration is difficult and attention span falls by the wayside. Mistakes increase. After three days, a person will start to hallucinate and clear thinking is impossible. With continued wakefulness, a person can lose grasp on reality. A person who gets just a few hours of sleep per night can experience many of the same problems over time.
It only takes three days of sleep deprivation to cause a person to hallucinate. Obviously, if you were to go for a longer period of time, the symptoms would worsen and in time, would most likely prove fatal. Rats forced to stay awake continuously will eventually die, proving that sleep is definitely essential. So, unless you were being forced to stay awake, you'd probably fall asleep before something as drastic as death could happen.
It's interesting to know that some people can function on very little sleep if necessary. A portion of a Navy SEAL's rigorous training program is a good example of this phenomenon. During a particularly rigorous week of training, the trainees must engage in highly physical activities for about six days - all of their hard work is accomplished on about four hours of sleep for the entire week!
Read the text below. Fill in the gaps with these sentences endings;
a) sea levels would not be affected.
b) it wouldn't flood all the Earth.
c) it would add another 20 feet to the oceans.
d) all of these cities would be under water.
e) sea levels around the world would rise about 200 feet.
3) What would happen if you were locked in an airtight room? How long would you survive?
Read the text to find the answer
In order to answer this question, we need to figure out how much oxygen you actually use in a normal day. First, let's assume that you're sitting in a chair, just hanging out. Maybe you're watching TV. You are not panicking, and you are not exercising. You might take 10 to 12 breaths per minute. That means that you will inhale and exhale seven to eight liters of air (about one-fourth of a cubic foot) every minute.
You could actually measure this yourself by holding a garbage bag in your hand and exhaling each breath into it. A typical white garbage bag that you find in the kitchen holds 50 liters or so. It would take you five to ten minutes to fill it full of air, depending on how big you are, and what you are doing. If you do the math, you can see that in a day you breathe something like 11,000 liters of air. That's roughly 200 garbage bags full of air, or 388 cubic feet of air.
Now, what if someone were to completely seal your bedroom with plastic and lock you inside. How long would you last? A typical bedroom is roughly 12 feet by 12 feet by 8 feet. That is 1,152 cubic feet or 32,621 liters. It would take you three days to inhale and exhale 1,152 cubic feet of air. However, that does not mean that you would actually be able to live in your sealed room for three days.
If you could somehow use your room as a giant "air tank" -- so you only breathed the air in it once -- that would be one thing. This is what people do when they go scuba diving. They breathe air out of their tank and then exhale it into the water. But you're not just breathing in - you're breathing out into the room, too.
Since you are sitting inside a sealed room, you have two problems. The first problem comes because you are breathing out carbon dioxide with every breath. You are "polluting" the room with carbon dioxide. The other problem is that, with each breath, you are consuming oxygen. So the amount of carbon dioxide in the room is rising with every breath, and the amount of oxygen is falling.
When the person first locks you in the room, about 21% of the air in your room is oxygen. The rest is nitrogen. There is hardly any carbon dioxide at all in the room (0.05% or less). Now you take a breath. What goes in is 21% oxygen and 0% carbon dioxide. What comes out is 16% oxygen and 5% carbon dioxide. Once you get to the point where the room's total oxygen falls to 19% and the carbon dioxide level reaches 2%, you're in trouble. Not only are you getting less oxygen, but you're now also taking in carbon dioxide, which is actually a poison.
Therefore, in reality, you will only last a day and a half or so. Then your body will begin having problems. So, you had better start working on finding a way out of that room!
You're more prone to disease, and a child's growth can be stunted by sleep deprivation.
A) Sleep gives the body a chance to repair muscles and other tissues and replace aging or dead cells. B) Sleep gives the brain a chance to organize and archive memories (dreaming is probably a part of that process). C) Sleep may be a way of recharging the brain.
A person will start to hallucinate and clear thinking is impossible. With continued wakefulness, a person can lose grasp on reality.
You'd probably fall asleep before something as drastic as death could happen.
Ex 4
Life would not survive and the oceans would be vaporized
The activities in the worksheet at the bottom of this post are based on the full episode available on DVD or on youtubehttp://youtu.be/L2UCRNldC3s(it cannot be embedded here).
This post contains some exercises based on the embeddable youtube clips. The answers are in the worksheet.
Mr Bean celebrates the traditional British Christmas: the baubles, the crackers, the nativity scene, the carols, the presents, the turkey and the mistletoe... they are all here. As no British Christmas is complete without a disaster or two that makes it the typical British Christmas!
You are going to
discuss Christmas
watch the Christmas Mr Bean episode and do some activities
find Christmas words in a word search exercise
write the story in the past tense
find out more about the typical British Christmas and some of the Christmas things in the video.
What do people usually do on Christmas Eve in the UK?
What do people usually do on Christmas Day in the UK?
Do you know of any special Christmas food or Christmas customs in the UK?
What decorations do we have?
What’s a cracker?
What’s mistletoe?
What are carols?
Watch clip 1
Answer the questions in the interactive exercise after you watch
Did Mr Bean have any Christmas decorations?
What Christmas decorations did Mr Bean have?
What kind of films were on TV?
Did Mr Bean like the films?
What did the children sing?
Did Mr Bean like them?
What did he eat?
Did he give the children anything?
Now do exercise 1 (the answers to questions 9 and 10 are in the next clip)
Watch clip 2
Answer the questions in the interactive exercise after you watch
1) What were his 3 Christmas presents and who were they for?
2) Who says it?
Put “B” for Bean or “G” for his girlfriend.
___”Are you alright in there?”
___“Fine, thank you”
___“Cup of tea?”
___“Oh Yes, if you’re having one”
___“Well I might”
___“Have you got the turkey on?”
___“Do you want a hand?”
___“No, no, thank you”
3) Fill in the gaps from this list of verbs
USE THE PAST FORMS
(You can use some verbs more than once) Pull Eat Give Do Cry Make Be Ring Find Leave Want Scream Throw Lose Put Hang Be See
Mr Bean _____ lunch
The turkey ______ very big
He ______ stuffing inside the turkey
He ______ his watch
His girlfriend ______ the doorbell
She ______ up the mistletoe
She ______ when she ___ Mr Bean
She ______ the coal bucket out the window
Mr Bean ______ his watch
They ______ sandwiches for lunch
She ______ him a present
She ______ a kiss
He ______ want to kiss her
He _____ her a present
She ______ after she ___ her present and ______ the flat
Mr Bean ______ the cracker
There ___ an explosion
Now do exercises 2 and 3
4) Do the word square
There are 19 Christmas words hidden in this box. Can you find them all? The words go across → and down ↓
You are going to look at theVist Britainwebsite and answer some questions about Great Britain
Instructions
You only need to scan for information. Don't read everything. You only need to look for words which will help you find the answers. Try and do it as quickly as you can.
Scanning is an important skill to learn especially for reading texts in exams.
Introduction
Discuss
What can you do or see in Great Britain?
Watch the video.
How many activities and places can you see?
Note as many as you can. Whoever gets the most is the winner!
Reading.
Click on the links and read the pages to find the answers. Try and do it as quickly as you can.
A) When did "Britain" start to exist?
B) When did the Romans arrive? C) How old was Queen Victoria when she became queen?
D) What achievements happened between 1901 - 1944?
Go here
4) Cities and Towns
What are the 4 capital cities in Great Britain?
Go here
5) Myths and Legends
A) Where was Robin Hood from?
B) Where can you see a monster?
C) How old is Stonehenge?
Go here
6) London
A) How many languages can you hear in London?
B) How many attractions are there?
C) How many shops are there?
Go here
7) England
A) What's the population of England?
B) What attractions can you see?
Go here
8) Northern Ireland
A) What's the capital of Northern Ireland?
B) What's the population?
Go here
9) Scotland
A) What is Scotland's largest city?
B) What is the population?
C) Why is it Scotland's "style capital"?
Go here
10) Wales
A) How many languages do the Welsh speak?
B) Why is it called "the land of castles"?
C) What is the Welsh national sport?
D) Where is the Millennium Stadium?
Go here
11) Government
What's the difference between the House of Commons and the House of Lords?
Go here
Britain is made up of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, together with the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland
8) Northern Ireland
A) Belfast
B) 1.7 million
2) Food
Curry
9) Scotland
A) Glasgow
B) 580,690
C) Its innovative buildings, stylish shops, cultural centres, more than 30 art galleries and museums and an annual programme of performing arts and festivals
3) History
A) around 6500 BC
B) 43 AD
C) 18
D) the invention of the television; the founding of the British Broadcasting Company (BBC); the discovery of penicillin by Alexander Fleming; and insights into the structure of the atom, which led to the development of nuclear weapons and energy.
10) Wales
A) 2
B) It is home to 641 famous fortresses - more castles per square mile than anywhere else in the world
C) Rugby
D) Cardiff
4) Cities and Towns
Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh, London
11) Government
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament. It’s a democratically elected body consisting of 646 members called Members of Parliament (MPs). The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament, and here members called ‘Lords’ meet to debate, change Bills and scrutinise the work of the Government.
Members of the House of Lords aren’t elected; they either inherit their title or are appointed by the Government or shadow cabinet.
5) Myths and Legends
A) Nottingham
B) Loch Ness
C) 50,000 years
12) 2012
The Olympics
6) London
A) Over 300 languages
B) 238
C) 30,000 shops
13) Football
140 years (founded in 1872)
7) England
A) 50 million
B) Historical sites like Stonehenge, ecological attractions such as the Eden Project and family attractions ranging from zoos and safari parks to picnic spots and beaches
14) Music
Learn about music’s influence on art, fashion and politics and download music from the BME archive. You can also live your rock ‘n’ roll dreams and play guitar, piano or drums in the fully equipped Gibson Studio.
There are also infamous, irreplaceable pieces of British music memorabilia.
Teachers note; Parts 3 and 4 of this lesson were designed as an online collaborative reading / writing activity. Students read about and choose activity holidays from a webpage and post, read and compare their choices in an online forum on a VLE (eg Moodle). They then vote for the best "class holiday" after reading all the choices. A blog page would also serve for this function. If you do not have these facilities then get the students sit around a table and discuss each other's choices in the normal way.
The Rough Guide to... is a travel series presented by Julia Bradbury and Toby Amies.
You are going to
watch a clip from a holiday TV program and answer some questions
go onto a website to choose an activity holiday for yourself
answer some questions about the activity holiday you have chosen and describe it for the others in your class
compare all your holidays and vote for the best "class holiday."
write about a country you would like to visit
1) Introduction/ discuss
What do you like doing on holiday?
What is an activity holiday?
How many holiday activities can you think of a) on water b) on land?
Look at the activites in ex. B (below). How many would you like to do?
What activities do you think you could do on the island of Tenerife?
Tenerife is one of the Canary Islands (Spain).
Watch the clip. What activities do you see?
2) Rough Guide to Activity Holidays - Tenerife
Before you watch look at the exercises and read the questions
A) True or false?
Tenerife is the largest of the 7 Canary Islands
It’s a package holiday dream with year round sunshine
It’s a 2 hour flight from the UK
B)Which of the following activities are mentioned?
Swimming
Skiing
Jet skiing
Water skiing
Surfing
Kite surfing
Wind surfing
Sailing
Caving
Cycling
Mountain biking
Mountain climbing
C) Answer the questions
Water- skiing
Has she water-skied before?
How much does a lesson with Reg cost?
What was the water like?
What does Reg tell her she will never forget?
Paragliding
How high is the launch site?
How do paragliders fly?
What is their altitude?
What adjectives does she use to describe the experience?
How does she feel after the experience? What does she say?
Look at the list in the Activities and Experiences box on the left and choose the holiday activity you want to do. Then answer the questions below.
Answer the questions.
What is the activity?
How old do you have to be? (over 18?)
Where is it? (name of place and country)
How long will you go for (a week, 10 days)?
How much does it cost (and for how many days)?
Why do you want to do this activity? (Say why in 2 or 3 sentences)
Copy and paste the web page address
Copy and paste a photo
4) Group comparison activity
When you have finished copy and paste your answers (with the questions) into an online forum (if you have one) or print them.
Compare them and find out;
·Whose is the cheapest? ·Whose is the most expensive? ·Whose is the most dangerous?
Now discuss and vote for one holiday which you think would be best for your class.
5) Writing
You have the opportunity to visit a foreign country for two weeks. Which country would you like to visit? Use specific reasons and details to explain your choice.
