Part A. Before listening
Questions for discussion before listening:
1) Which of these sports do you do or would you like to do/play?
2) Which of these sports do you find the most/least enjoyable, and why?
3) Which of the sports in the pictures do you think requires: a) the most skill? b) the most stamina?
Key: 1) A (to play) tennis; D (to play) squash;
B (to play) football; E (to go) skiing;
C (to go) cycling; F (to go) sailing.
Part B. Listening activities
This is a kind of matching activity.
Key: 1) Jo - D, Brian - B, Stephanie - E.
2) - needs a lot of energy - squash;
- is exciting - football;
- can be dangerous - skiing;
- is very popular at the moment - squash;
- is fast - skiing;
- requires skill - football/skiing;
- is tiring - squash;
- is expensive - skiing.
3)
| Jo | Brian | Stephanie |
| Since she was at school | For nearly forty years/ since he was a little kid | Since she can remember |
| yes | yes | yes |
c) Jo: I've been playing it since I was at school - since I was quite young.
Brian: I've been playing for nearly forty years, ever since I was a little kid.
Stephanie: I've been doing it every winter holiday since I can remember.
Part B. Writing
These aims are to provide students with a communicative purpose and stimulus for writing focusing on creativity as well as accuracy.
Part. A. Before you listen
It is a kind of brainstorming activity. Students work in pairs.
Key: i) because of geography;
ii) because of its climate and agriculture.
Part. B. Listening for gist
Let the students listen to the first part of the tape. The task in this part may be confusing for the students, because all three answers suggested match the first question. The answer for the second question would be: To the south of this line there are mainly low lands and hills.
Part C. Intensive listening (it includes reading)
The students might do this task while listening to the second part of the tape or after it.
Key:
The South West is famous for its beautiful countryside and dramatic coastline.
Dartmoor is inhabited by wild ponies.
In the South East the countryside is more gentle, and there is a lot of fruit-growing.
East Anglia is very flat and famous for its vast fields of wheat arid potatoes.
The South East is the most heavily populated part of Britain.
The Midlands used to have a lot of heavy industry, but much of this has disappeared over recent, years.
Vales is characterized by its mountains in the north and its valleys in the south.
In the North West there is the beautiful Lake District and cities of Liverpool and Manchester.
Ireland is famed for its rains and its green grass, its romance and its mists.
Scotland is famous for its lakes, known as lochs.
The North East used to have a lot of mining and ship building, but not any more, unfortunately.
Part D. Extension Activities
In this part the students are given an opportunity to compare their ideas about, what British people are. They exchange their ideas in pairs, then find sentences to support their predictions. They compare their lists of characteristics with the results of survey: what people in different countries think about the British.
The last, task might be done at home as a written work. The English people might be compared with Russian people.