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Reading

ed-5ÿ Eñ?na Gißewood

& Juliet Meyers

Lessons
(inte ediate I Advanced)

MARY GLASGO*
MAGAZINES

N SCHOLASTI
BblJIO>KeHO rpynnoÿl

Contents

Pupils with two or more years of English
The
Other Hollywood4
Homeless
on the streets
of Hollywood
Weight-Loss
Camps .6
Why
overweight teenagers in
Britain are going to camps
Secret
Love8
Teenagers give advice about a secret relationship between a Hindu girl
and a Muslim boy
Parent
Trouble?10
Can parenting classes build better relationships between teenagers and
their parents?
A Baby ... Maybe?12
Why are American high schools giving dolls to their teenage students?
The
Teenage Brain14
Are over-sized brains the key to difficult teenage behaviour?
What's
the Difference Between
Boys and Girls?16
Two
teenagers share their views
Should We Eat Meat?20
The opposing views of a vegan and a meat-lover
Are
You Prejudiced?24
A quiz to help you find out
Animal Hospital .26
The RSPCA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals)
hospital in London
The Fashion Spies28
Companies that pay kids to tell them what's cool
When
Don't You Tell the Truth?30 Teenagers confess when and why they lie

Upper Intermediate

Pupils with three or more years of English
Mixed-race
Relationships32
The difficulties faced by teenagers who go out with someone from a
different ethnic group
'We Have Simple Lives' .34
The
Amish people of America
Teenage
Depression .36
Why
are more and more teenagers suffering from mental illness?
Being Beautiful38
What lengths will people go to in their search for beauty?
Sobriety
High40
America's high school for teenage drug addicts
The Best Night of Their Lives42
The
high school prom

OF
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The Cool School .  .
44            Animal
Rights -
A
British talent school for music, A New Breed of Activism . .  .
64 film and performing
arts Animal cruelty is an issue that upsets most people, but are Happy Birthday
America .46 animal rights activists
    The fourth of July                                                           going
too far?
Britain Vs America48 E is for Ecstasy, Euphoria ... . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . 66

and Death
A light-hearted look at the differences between American and British
people Ecstasy is becoming increasingly popular with young people,
but what are the dangers?

Life according to Hollywood

Can't We Just Be Friends?

       68

Surf It!

.
  52

Dealing with break-ups

The universal appeal of surfing

Coping
  With Stress .

       .
  70

Ice Hockey - The Coolest Sport

.
  54

Ten tips to help combat it

Is it the sport for you?

Food, Dangerous Food

      72

Road Rage

 56

The eating habits that make Britain
  the fattest

When driving causes people to lose their tempers

European nation

The Age of the Internet Nerd .

 58

Ben on ... Applying to College .

       74

The teenage Internet entrepreneurs

Californian teenager Ben Roome

who are making a fortune

gives an insight into applying to

in cyberspace

college in the USA

The Mystery of William Shakespeare
Who was the 'real'

       76

Pupils with four or
  more years of English

William Shakespeare?

Ay Carumba!

      78

Africa's AIDS Orphans .  60

Are the Simpsons America's

The devastating consequences of AIDS on Africa's youngest generation

most powerful family?

Things You Learn at the Movies50
Race in Britain Today  62
A look at the horrendous results of racism in Britain

LESSONS

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rpynnoÿl

The Other
Hollywood

               reading
Vocabulary
1)   Organise the students into pairs and
ask each pair to look up the meaning of one of the following words: limousines,
homelessness, abuse, escape, glamorous lifestyle, thieves, steal, prison,
studio, HIV positive, in care.
2)   When they have definitions for the
words, ask them to mingle and explain them to the other students who should
make a note of what they learn.
Writing predictions
1)   Ask the class to predict the content
of the article from the above words.
2)   Ask them to answer the questions
below with They might... and They might believe that. .. respectively. They should brainstorm
as many different possibilities as they can and then compare their answers in
small groups.
Why do
teenagers run away from home? Why do young people go to Hollywood?
• During reading I feedback
Scan reading
Ask the students to keep their predictions in mind as
they read the article, then hold a feedback session. Were the points that they
made mentioned in the article?
Reading comprehension
Hand out activity 1,
Comprehension and ask the students to write answers to the questions about the
text.
Discussion
Use activity 2, Discussion as a lead-in to a class
discussion or debate about who is to blame for the homeless situation in
Hollywood and what can be done about it.
• Follow-up activities
Discussion I grammar (used to)
Ask your class to imagine
the daily life of a homeless person on the streets of Los Angeles. Allow them
two minutes to discuss their ideas with their partner then ask them to give you
examples of how young homeless people spend their days and write them on the
board. When all of the suggestions are on the board, ask the students to
speculate about what these young people's lives were like before. Encourage
them to use the structure used to.
Writing
They could then write a
diary for a day as a homeless person.

Answers
1. Comprehension
1  There are 4000 - 10,000 homeless
  teenagers in Hollywood, which is about one tenth of Los Angeles' homeless
  population.
2  Over half of people under the age of
  25 run away because of abuse.
3  Young people often go to Hollywood
  because they dream they will become movie stars and lead glamorous lives.
4  Young homeless people in Hollywood
  face danger from thieves and gangs. There is also a danger that they might
  get involved in buying and selling drugs.

Timesaver
  Reading Lessons • Photocopiable Activities

The Other Hollywood

  1. Comprehension                             2.
  Discussion
Read the article and write
  answers Who do you think is responsible for creating the Hollywood to the
  following questions. homeless? Put a tick next to the sentence(s) you agree
  with. Then, discuss your answers with a partner.
1.   How many homeless
  teenagers live in Hollywood? The movie industry because they make films which
  give young people false hope.
2.   What is
  the reason that many
The movie stars who lead
  glamorous lifestyles. young people run away from home?
The government because they could do more
  to help teenagers in this situation.
3.
  What attracts young people to
Hollywood?The parents of these teenagers.
4.   What are the dangers
  forC] The teenagers themselves because they should stay at home homeless
  people in Hollywood?and try to work out their problems.

OE

TIMESAVER READING LESSONS

The
Other Hollywood
Say the word 'Hollywood' and we think
of the movies, long limousines and famous people living in luxury on Beverly
Hills.
But there's
another Hollywood which we don't hear about, it's the part of Hollywood where
the homeless live.

Hollywood is America's unofficial homeless
capital and between 4,000 and 10,000 homeless teenagers sleep on Hollywood
Boulevard every night, that's about one tenth of Los Angeles' homeless
population.
Why are they on the streets? Over half of the people
aged under 25 and living on the streets leave their family homes because of
abuse. They might feel frightened, or even think they are responsible for it.
Many teenagers don't know where to look for help, and the only way out of the
situation may seem to be to run away from it.
A
dream come true?

For many teenagers Hollywood seems like an escape from their difficult home
life. They arrive with the dream that they will become movie stars and lead the
glamorous lifestyle that they see in the movies. However, the reality is that
thieves steal their money in the first week, and many soon become involved in
buying and selling drugs in order to survive. Some teenagers become gang
members and either end up in prison, or dead because gang culture is very
violent in America. So the dream that teenagers arrive with, and the reality
they find, are very different.
Who is
responsible?
Movies create the image
of
Hollywood which we all have. Are they responsible for
what happens to homeless teenagers on Hollywood Boulevard? Some campaigners for
the homeless believe that they are and have organised protests at Hollywood
studios. London's Big Issue magazine recently asked Steven Spielberg's office,
Warner, and Colombia Studios to comment on the problem of homeless teenagers in
Hollywood, but none of them believed that they were responsible. Every day the
studios continue to make movies and teenagers keep coming to Hollywood full of
hope and dreams.

Weight-loss Camps

Lead in
Tell your
class that weight problems among teenagers in the US and Britain are increasing.
Discuss with the class the reasons whymore kids àre overweight and ask them what

can be done about it. Do
they think that children in their country are becoming more overweight?
Vocabulary
Hand out the
photocopiable activities and ask the students to work in pairs to complete
activity 1, Vocabulary from Photocopiable Activities. When they have matched
the words to their definitions, tell them that they are about to read an
article about a boy called Darren who goes to a weight-loss camp (a place where
young people can go to stay for a short period in order to lose weight). Ask
them to use the new vocabulary to predict the answers to the following
questions:
 What is Darren like?
 How do his school friends treat him?  What food does he eat?
They can check their
answers as they read.
• During reading I feedback
Reading for gist

Timesaver Reading Lessons •
  Photocopiable Activities

Weight-loss Camps

  1. Vocabulary                                                                            2.
  Comprehension
        Match the words with
  their definitions.                                                          Read
  the text and answer the
1.
  sweet-natured a) too heavy or fat          questions.
2.
  size      b) a dish made of lamb with mashed      1. Why isn't
  Darren popular?
3.
  to tease             potatoes on top               2. Why has
  Darren decided to go to
4.
  obesec) to frighten
  or hurt a weaker person     a weight-loss camp?
5.
  overweight      d) how big someone or something is                     3.
  What does Darren want to do
6.
  to bully '             e)
  a small amount of food that you                        when
  he leaves school?

                                                            eat
  between meals
7.
  nutrition                           4. Why is being obese bad
  for

                                                          f)
  to make fun of someone                                            teenagers?
8.      to
  progress       g)
  a portion of food at a meal 5. What do doctors think has caused
9.
  shepherd's pie
h)   so fat
  that it may cause health                   the increase in obesity
  in Britain?
10.   helping
  problems
       1 1. snack                                                                                6.
  What different types of activity do
i)     nice,
  kind                            children do at
  weight-loss camps?

j)     to
  develop or improve                   7. What kind of
  atmosphere is there

k)   the study of human
  diet                at the weight-loss camp?

Before the students read the
article, ask them what they think weight-loss camps are like. As they read,
they should underline anything that confirms or contradicts their thoughts.
After reading the article, ask the students for their general impressions of
weight-loss camps. Do they think they are a good idea? What are the advantages
and disadvantages of weight-loss camps? Would they go to a weight-loss camp if
they needed to lose weight?
Understanding the text
Ask the students to read
the article again and answer the questions in activity 2, Comprehension.
• Follow-up activities
Discussion
Discuss Darren's two diets with your students. What is wrong with his diet at home and what
improvements are there in his camp diet? Ask the students which diet they would
prefer and which diet most resembles their own. Do any improvements need to be
made in their diets?
Group
activity
Divide the students into small groups and tell them
that it is their job to make sure the kids at their school are healthy. They
should make a plan that explains what kinds of food should be available in the
school canteen, and what kinds of exercise the kids should do and how often.
They should be encouraged to think of their own ideas and rules, rather than
simply repeating what happens at weight-loss camp.

Answers
1.
  Vocabulary li 2d
  3f 4h 5a 6c 7k 8j 9b 10g Ile
2.
  Comprehension
1
  Because he is
  overweight and people are more interested in his size than his personaJity;
2
  Because he is
  teased by the children at his school;
3
  He wants to be
  an actor or a police officer;
4
  Because they are
  more likely to be bullied and develop health problems when they are older;
5
  Junk food,
  computer games and TV;
6
  Different types
  of sports, lessons on nutrition and discussions;
7
  Very positive.
  Everyone is equal, they make lots of friends and go home healthier and
  happier.

Weight-loss Camps
The first
weight-loss camp for young people in the UK opened in July 1999. So, is a stay
at a weight-loss camp frightening or fun?

Darren Debono is sweet-natured and doing well at school.
He wants to be an actor or a police officer. Unfortunately, most people are
more interested in his size than his personality. Darren is 5 feet 10 inches (1
.75 metres) tall and weighs 20 stone (127 kilograms). He is twice his ideal
weight. He is teased about his weight by children at his school so he has
decided to attend Britain's first weight-loss camp for obese children.
Weight problems among children in Britain
are increasing. In 1996 about 5 per cent of children in Britain were
overweight. In the year 2000, 10 per cent of British children were obese and 20
per cent or more were over their ideal weight. Obese children are often bullied
at school and may have health problems when they become adults. Most doctors
blame the problem on too much junk food, computer games and TV.
Each morning at the camp, the children do three hours of
activities like football, hockey and rugby. After lunch they do another sport
like basketball. They have lessons on nutrition and cooking as well as
discussions where they talk about how they're feeling and progressing. Everyone
is equal and gets a lot of help. Most kids leave the camp with lots of new
friends and feeling healthier and happier than before.
Darren's diet at home
Breakfast:
Crunchy Nut cornflakes two slices of toast
Mid-morning
snack:
sweets, crisps
Lunch:
burger and chips
Mid-afternoon snack: chocolate, fizzy drinks, more burgers
Dinner:
large portion of shepherd's pie - plus
second helpings
General
snacks:
sandwiches
Darren's diet at camp
Breakfast:
cereal
Lunch:
low-fat pizza
Mid-afternoon
snack: fresh fruit or vegetables
(only two snacks allowed per day)
Dinner:
beef risotto
(restricted portion)

     E

Secret Love

Ask the
  students if they have ever kept secrets from their parents. Did their parents
  ever find out, if so, what happened? Do they feel guilty about keeping the
  secret or do they think it was the best thing to do?
Predicting
Before handing out the article to the students, read the first sentence
  of the letter to them. Ask them to predict the girl's problem.
Vocabulary
Pre-teach the following words and phrases: to approve, to
  break up, to solve, things come and go (things change regularly), to fall out
  with someone.
 During reading
Reading comprehension
Read about the problem together
  before the students look at the advice. Ask them what advice they would give
  to somebody in the girl's situation.
What would be the consequences of
  the following actions?  continuing to see her boyfriend in secret  telling her parents about her
  boyfriend  running away from home
Ask the students to read what the teenagers say and choose
  the piece of advice they most agree with.

that
  the advice they have chosen is better than the advice their partner has
  chosen.
Follow-up activities
Grammar (second conditional)
Ask the
  students what they would do if they were in the girl's position. Encourage
  them to use the second conditional by asking questions such as,
What would you do if you thought your parents didn't approve of your
  girlfriend / boyfriend? What would you do if you couldn't
  concentrate on important exams? What would you do if you wanted to run away from home?
After the students have had a chance to use the second conditional
  orally, ask them to complete the sentences in activity 1, What would happen?
  (second conditional).
Write the
  story
Discuss
  with the students what will happen to the girl if she runs away from home.
  Tell them to use these thoughts to finish the girl's story. Alternatively,
  they could write the story from the perspective of her boyfriend or her
  parents.
Vocabulary
You can reinforce the vocabulary which you taught at the beginning of
  the lesson by asking the students to complete activity 2, Vocabulary
  crossword.

Answers
Vocabulary 1 fall out, 2 approve, 3
  solve, 4 come and go, 5 break up

Speaking
Tell them to
find a partner who has chosen a different piece of advice. Each person must try
to persuade their partner

Timesaver Reading Lessons '
  Photocopiable Activities

Secret Love
If my parents found
  out I'd been lying to them about something important, they'd...
1.
  If you have a big argument 4. Things or people that change If I broke
  up with my with someone you  regularly in your life boyfriend /
  girlfriend with them (phrasal . For example, fashions, because of other
  people's verb). (4, 3) teachers and boyfriends or opinions, . 2. to be pleased about a
  girlfriends (phrase). (4, 3, 2)
If I ran away from home, .                  choice to find
  someone an answer makes to a (7)            5.
  boyfriend, If you leave youyour girlfriend /with 3.
                                                                                problem
  (5)                                           them (phrasal verb). (5, 2)

Secret Love

I'm
an Asian girl and I started going out with an Asian boy three months ago.
The
problem is, I'm Hindu and he's

Kirsty,
  13

Hannah, 17

Lee, 13

Stay with your boyfriend and

Don't run away, it never

You should break up with your

get him to meet your parents.

solves anything. Talk to your

boyfriend
  or run away. There's

They might
  feel differently if

parents. Boyfriends come and

no point in talking to your

they like
  him. Try and solve

go but you've always got

parents because they won't

things by
  talking.

your family, so don't fall out with them.

understand.

Muslim
and my parents won't approve. When my parents went away recently, my boyfriend and I spent
a lot of time together
and I was really happy. But now we have to keep our relationship a secret. We
love each other and don't want to break up but I don't know
what to do. I can't concentrate on my A-levels and keep thinking about running away. I know this isn't the
answer but what else can I do? My parents won't understand.

The
Advice
TEAM asked some teenagers for their advice.
Tick (V) the best advice.

Parent Trouble?

Tell the students that they are going
to read about David, the father of three teenage children, who has done a
course to help him improve his skills as a parent. Ask the students whether
they think such courses are a good idea. What skills do they think a parent
needs? Would they like their mums and dads to go on parenting courses? Ask them
to give reasons for their answers.
Vocabulary
Hand out activity 1, Vocabulary. After they have finished, ask the
students to use the vocabulary to predict some of the things that David says
about the course and his relationship with his children.
 During reading I feedback
Reading for gist
As the
students read, they should check how many of their predictions were correct.
After they have finished, check the students' comprehension by asking them the
following questions:
 Why did David go on the course?
 What happened on the course?
 What has changed since he did the course?
Reading
comprehension
Finally, tell the students to look at
the article again and put the questions from activity 2, Add the Questions,
into the correct places.
• Follow-up activities
Speaking
Tell
your students to imagine their parents are going on a parenting course. What
things would they like their mums and dads to learn?
Reading and Speaking
Ask them
to read the two stories in activity 3, Reading and Speaking. Get them to
discuss what they would do with a partner and them share their opinions with
the class.

Answers
1.
  Vocabulary 1k,
  2i, 3b, 4h, 5j, 6d, 7c, 8e, 9a, 10f, Ill, 12g.
2.
  Add the
  Questions a3, b4, c 1, d5, e2

Timesaver Reading Lessons •
  Photocopiable Activities

Parent Trouble?

1. Vocabulary
Match the words from the
1.     unenthusiastic
2.     to
  encourage
3.     to
  explore
4.     to co-operate
5.
  common sense
6.
  to criticise someone
7.
  in advance
8.
  to nominate
9.
  liberal
10.
attitude
11.
constructively
12. to resist something

text with
  the definitions below.
a)   not strict, free
b)   to find out about
  things
c)   before something
  happens
d)   to say negative
  things about someone
e)   to choose or propose
f)    way of
  behaving
g)   to stop
  yourself from doing something that you want to do
h)   to work together
  with someone
i)     to help
  or persuade someone to do something
j)     something
  that is practical or logical
k)   showing little
  interest in things
l)     helpfully
  or positively

2. Add the Questions
Read the article and put the questions in
  the correct places.
a)
  What did you learn?
b)   What
  did your children think about you doing the course?
c)    Why did you
  decide to do a parenting course?
d)
  Did the course help?
e)   What did you do in
  the classes?

3. Reading
  and             In September 1992, Gregory Kingsley, a In December 1978, two
  baby girls were Speaking   12-year-old American boy wanted to     mixed up in
  a hospital and taken home The stories below         divorce his parents.
  Gregory wanted to by the wrong parents. The mistake was about children     be
  adopted by the people who were      discovered ten years later when one of
  and their parents      taking care of him. He said his mother   the girls
  died. When her 'parents' are all true. Read      had neglected and abandoned
  him. He realised the babies had been exchanged each story and      had only
  lived seven months of the past               and their own daughter was still
  alive, decide what you              eight years with her. When he was not
  they wanted to meet her and visit her would do.      with her, she did not
  ring, visit or write to him at all.       regularly.
If you were the judge, would you let  If you were the judge, would you
  allow Gregory divorce his parents? the parents to have visiting rights?
Yes No

©

TIMESAVER READING LESSONS

Parent Trouble?
Fact: Parents
and their children have the most arguments and problems when the children are
teenagers.

In England recently there has been a large
increase in the number of parents who have decided to go on 'parenting
courses'. These are courses for parents who hope to 'manage' their teenage
children better. We spoke to David, a father of three teenagers who had done
one of these courses with his wife.
David: We wanted to
help our teenage daughter. She was unenthusiastic about things in her life and
was not enjoying things she was doing. We wanted to encourage her to talk to us
more.
David:
Well, firstly, we talked to
several other parents about their situations. Then we acted out common problems
and put ourselves in the positions of our children. We tried to explore ways in
which both the parents and the children would co-operate more.
David:
A lot of what we learnt was
common sense such as Jistening to our children more. We also I learnt to praise
our children more, Sometimes parents find it easy to criticise and forget to
praise the good things. We also learnt to talk about things in advance before a
problem became too large. This way, the argument is finished before the problem
is too big. We also learnt the importance of rules and nominating time for
doing things to be done. Before, we felt uncomfortable doing this because we
had been teenagers ourselves in the liberal 60's.
David:
They did not mind at all.
They were pleased. Now they say they can notice a difference in our attitude.
Sometimes they laugh and say, "We know what you're doing, you're trying to
praise constructively, aren't you?" But praise is a very powerful thing.
No one can resist it. It always works.
David:
Yes absolutely! How could we have been such
stupid parents before?

©

A Baby...
Discuss
teenage pregnancy with your students. In what ways does having a baby when you
are still at school affect your life? Ask the students to brainstorm a list of
jobs you have to do when you are looking after a baby.
Vocabulary
Ask the
students to complete activity 1, Vocabulary before they read the article.
• During reading I
feedback
Reading for gist
Tell the students they are going to read about speciat dolls
that American high schools are giving their students to teach them how
difficult it is to look after a baby. Ask the students to predict the things
that the dolls do. They can use the vocabulary from the earlier exercise to
help them with these predictions.
As they read, they should underline the things that the dolls do. Were the
students' predictions correct? Was there anything that the dolls did that
surprised them? Was there anything that the dolls didn't do that the students
thought would have been useful?
Reading comprehension

Ask the students to re-read the
text to complete activity 2, Comprehension.
 Follow-up activities
Vocabulary (phrasal verbs)

Timesaver Reading Lessons •
  Photocopiable Activities

A Baby... Maybe?

  1. Vocabulary                                         2.
  Comprehension
Match the
  words and phrases withRead the article and decide if the following sentences
  are their definitions.true or false.
1.
  to increase          5. at random     1. There are a lot more
  teenage pregnancies in the USA.
2.
  rapidly   intervals              2. The dolls cry every twenty
  minutes.

3.
  to admit something         6. to record                      3.
  The dolls don't cry as loudly as real babies.
4.
  to look after        7. a response                  4.
  The dolls record how many minutes it takes for someone to pick them up.
a)   to
  store or copy information or 5. It's impossible to tell whether someone was
  angry when sound they picked the doll up.
b)   to
  care for someone or something,         6. Most high school teenagers enjoy
  looking after the dolls. such as a child or a pet   7. Most high school
  teenagers are happy to return the dolls.
c)   to tell
  someone something (usually that you are ashamed of)
d)   quickly           3. Phrasal verbs
e)
  at any time (rather than every ten           Write one phrasal verb in
  each gap.
minutes or every hour)  1. It's isn't easy to .                                                                                f)
  to get bigger 2. Babies often ..... ..... ..... ..... .... ... many times
  during the night.
g) a reaction to something
3. You have to .....
  ..... ..... ..... ..... .. the baby and hold it to stop it crying.
, pick up look after • wake up •

As a class, ask the students to
explain the meaning of the
Maybe?
phrasal
verbs in activity 3, Phrasal verbs. Then tell the students to work alone to put
them into the correct places. They should check their answers with their
partner.
Discussion
Ask the class the following questions and encourage debate among the
students:
 Is it a good idea to give students
dolls to look after?  In what ways are the dolls like / unlike real babies?  Would it be a good idea to give the
dolls to students at your school?
 Do you think that these dolls prevent teenage pregnancies?
Designing a doll
Tell the
students that they work for the company that makes the baby dolls. The babies
have been a great success, but now they want to make a second range of dolls.
These dolls are going to be toddlers (one to two year-old children). The
students must work in groups to make a list of things the dolls will do. Point
out to the students that the main difference between babies and toddlers is
that toddlers can move and talk. You may have to teach your students some
useful vocabulary beforehand.

Answers
1.
  Vocabulary If,
  2d, 3c, 4b, 5e, 6a, 7g.
2.
  Comprehension 1
  true, 2 false, 3 false, 4 true, 5 false (because the dolls record the
  response of the person who picks them up), 6 true, 7 true.
3.
  Phrasal verbs 1
  look after, 2 wake up, 3 pick up.

TIMESAVER READING LESSONS
A Baby... Maybe?
Why are American high schools giving
dolls out to their teenage students?

The answer is simple. They
are worried about teenage pregnancy. The number of teenage girls who get
pregnant in the USA is increasing rapidly. Many teenagers do not realise what
it is like to have a baby until they have one. They admit that they thought babies
were easy to care for. Schools want teenagers to THINK before they have
children.
They cry during the day and the night.
They are giving these dolls
to both boys and girls who have to look after them for three days. It sounds
easy, doesn't it? However, these are special computerised dolls. They contain
computer programs which cause them to cry at random intervals. They cry during
the day and the night (as loudly as a real baby). The only way to stop them
crying is to hold them for twenty minutes. This is as long as the time you need
to feed a real baby.
These dolls also record how
many minutes they cry before someone picks them up. In fact they are so clever
that they also record the response of the person who picks them up, so it is
possible to hear if the person is angry or not. Most
©
schools say that the
teenagers enjoy having the dolls though they are normally extremely happy when
they can return them.
After they had had the dolls
for three days, most of the students said they wanted to wait a long time to
have children.
Is this a good experiment for your
school? Yes a No a
Do you want to look after the doll for three days?
Yes a Non

The Teenage Brain

Ask the
students to discuss the following question with their partners.
Do
teenagers behave differently to adults? In what ways?
Encourage
them to give examples from their own experience.
Vocabulary
1)   You will need to pre-teach the
following words, or ask your students to look them up in their dictionaries:
developed, to shrink, judgement, reasoning, impulsive, clumsy to influence,
programmed, to warn.
2)   Before the students read the article,
look at the diagram of the brain together. Ask the students what the different
parts do so that they become familiar with the new words. If you wish, you
could do this as a test by giving them a few minutes to study the diagram and
then, asking them to turn the page over. Use questions like:
What
happens in the Occipital lobe?
Which part
of the brain controls hearing?
Language practice
This might
be a good time to get your students to do activity 1, Word formation. Again,
they could attempt this activity from memory and then look back at the diagram
in order to check their answers.
•
During reading
Reading comprehension

Timesaver Reading Lessons •
  Photocopiable Activities

The Teenage Brain
1.
Word formation         3.
  Idiomatic expressions
Change these verbs into
  nouns. Look back at the brain diagram (words and phrases with 'brain') to
  check your answers. The words and phrases below all Verb Noun include the
  word brain! Match each
1.   to
  speak S  h     word or phrase with its
  definition.
2.   to
  think                                                      1.
  to pick someone's brains
3.
  to move m            2. brainy
4.
  to see    S3. a brainwave
5.
  to remember /
  memorise   m     4. to have something on the brain
                                                                                5.
  to rack your brains
2. Comprehension         a) a sudden,
  clever idea
Read the article and decide if the
  following sentences are true b) very intelligent or false.  c) to be obsessed
  with something
1.
  Scientists believe that young children have fully-developed d)
  to get information by asking someone who knows a lot about
2.   The
  teenage brain is bigger than the adult brain.                the subject
3.   The
  brain stops developing during the teenage years.     e) to try very hard to
  think of or
4.
  The number of
  cells in your brain never changes.                        remember something

Ask the students how they think
the brain changes from childhood to adulthood. Tell them to read the article to
check their answers. They might be surprised by some of the information. After
this, they should re-read the article to answer the comprehension questions in
activity 2, Comprehension.
•
Follow-up
activities
Discussion
Put the following statements on the board:  This new research is good because
adults won't be able to tell teenagers off for dropping a glass or crashing a
car.
 This new research is bad because parents and teachers may not want to
give teenagers responsibility or freedom.
Ask the students which statement they agree with. What are their reasons?
Ask for more advantages and disadvantages of this research for teenagers.
Idiomatic expressions
Get your
students to do the vocabulary extension exercise, activity 3, Idiomatic
expressions. Then, ask them to discuss the following questions in pairs and
then do feedback with the whole class: Who is the brainiest person you know? Do
you know anyone who is obssessed with something (i.e. has something on the
brain)? Whose brains would you pick if you: a) were going to run a marathon? b)
had to write a speech? c) had entered a history quiz? Have you ever had a
brainwave? What was your brilliant idea? When was the last time you racked your
brain?
Building a better brain
Ask the students to work in small groups to make a list of rules of what you should and shouldn't
do to 'programme' your brain.

Answers
1.
  Word formation 1
  speech, 2 thought, 3 movement, 4 sight, 5 memory.
2.
  Comprehension 1
  false, 2 true, 3 false, 4 false,
3.
  Idiomatic
  expressions Id, 2b, 3a, 4c, 5e

TIMESAVER READING LESSONS

The Teenage Brain
Scientists have a new explanation for
the behaviour of teenagers:

their brains are too
big!

Teenagers have big
brains Scientists used to believe that our brains were fully developed by early
childhood. New research shows that the brain grows very quickly between the
ages of 10 and 12, when it is at its biggest. During the teenage years your brain
shrinks bit by bit until it is the size of an average adult's.

Explaining Teenage Behaviour The frontal and parietal lobes are the last to
finish developing. The frontal and parietal lobes manage judgement, reasoning,
planning for the future and visual/spatial

Frontal lobe

Parietal lobe

controls
  speech, thought and

controls
  feeling

consciousness,
  body movements

physical
  sensations,

and co-ordination
Temporal lobe

shapes
  and positions

controls
  hearing and memory

Occipital
  lobe

for speech and music
Brain stem

controls sight and reading

controls your breathing

Cerebellum

and your heart comes from Latin for "little
brain", controls movement and balance
ability. This may explain why teenagers are
sometimes more impulsive, emotional and clumsy than adults. It's not your
fault, your brain's too big!
Building a better brain The
teenage years are an important time in your brain's development and you can
build a better brain. The activities of the teenager influence which cells
disappear and which cells remain as they get older. Dr Giedd, a psychiatrist,
says, "If you're lying on the sofa or playing video games your brain gets
programmed for that." His advice: Test your brain. "If you exercise a
muscle, you make it stronger. The brain works like that. Try a foreign
language, music, games anything that makes the brain work hard."
How you're using your brain
now, influences the kind of brain you have when you're an adult. Don't say we
didn't warn you!

What's the Difference Between Boys
  and Girls?

 Before reading
Discussion
Ask the students what they think the main differences between boys and
girls are. You could ask the following questions: How do they behave
differently? Are there things that boys are better at than girls and that girls
are better at than boys? How are they treated differently? Can men and women do
the same jobs?
Vocabulary
The jigsaw
reading activity contains some words and phrases that the students may be
unfamiliar with, so before the students see the articles, they should complete
activity 1, Vocabulary (see page 18).
 During reading I feedback
Scan reading
a)  Divide your students into pairs.
Depending on the dynamics of your class, you may like to get your students into
mixed groups of boys and girls straightaway or you may prefer to divide them
into same-sex pairs to begin with and then get them to compare their answers
with a pair of the opposite sex afterwards.
b)  Give each pair or group a copy of
activity 2, Scan reading, and get them to discuss the statements and make a
note of their answers.
c)  Ask your students to cover the
statements and their answers.
d)  Explain to your students that two
teenagers were interviewed about their views on the differences between boys
and girls. They were asked exactly the same questions. One teenager was a boy
and the other one was a girl. Give one student in each pair Donna's text and
one student in each pair Barclay's text. Tell them that they must not show each
other their texts. Ask them to read their text quickly, giving them a time
limit. Then, ask them to check their answers to activity 2, Scan reading
together with their partner without referring back to their text unless
absolutely necessary. Go through and check the answers as a class.
Reading comprehension

Ask your students to read their
text through again and decide if they agree or disagree with Donna or Barclay.
Then, get them to discuss their opinions with another student who has read the
interview with the same person. During the discussion, go round the class,
checking that everyone seems to have understood the text fully.
Student interviews
Divide your class into pairs again, with one student who has read Donna's
interview and then another student who has read Barclay's interview. Tell them
to cover their text. Write the interview questions on the board as a prompt:
Do boys or girls mature faster? Do girls worry about their appearance
more? Do you act differently when you are with girls? What can boys do better
than girls? Are boys more practical than girls? What can girls do better than
boys? Do you think there are some jobs which women or men should not do? When
you are married, will you share the housework with your husband / wife? Do
parents treat sons and daughters differently? Are girls more sensitive than
boys? Do girls gossip more than boys? What annoys you about boys / girls? Will
you marry?
Get them to interview each other, answering the questions as either Donna
or Barclay. Emphasise that they don't need to use the same words as Donna or
Barclay, just convey the same meaning. Finally, get students to exchange texts
and give them a chance to read the text that they haven't read yet.
 Follow-up activities
Speaking I writing
a)  Get your students to interview each
other in pairs, using the same questions, but this time giving their own
opinions. Very confident speakers can go straight into the interview without
any preparation. However, most students will get more out of this activity if
they spend ten minutes making notes of their answers first. Make sure that they
use their notes only as a prompt rather than reading them aloud.
b) Students can write up either their own
or their partner's answers for homework.

Answerš
1.
  Vocabulary If,
  21, 30. 4h, 5m, 6a, 7n, 8e, 9i, 10d, 1 1 b, 12c, 13g, 14k.
2.
  Scan reading
  Note: Donna is a girl and Barclay is a boy
1
  about girls,
  said by both Donna and Barclay
2
  about girls,
  said by Barclay
3
  about boys, said
  by Barclay
4
  about girls,
  said by Barclay
5
  about boys, said
  by Donna
6
  about girls,
  said by Barclay
7
  about boys, said
  by Donna
8
  about girls,
  said by Donna

TIMESAVER READING LESSONS

What's the Difference
Between Boys and Girls?

Donna
Do boys or girls mature faster? Girls definitely mature
faster!
Some boys behave like absolute babies when
they are with their friends.
Do you act differently when
you are with girls? I talk about different things but I don't act differently.
There's no point acting differently with boys. You must just be yourself.
What can boys do better than
I'm not sure.
Are boys more practical than
No, I think boys and girls are equally practical.
What can girls do better than boys?
Horse-riding and listening to people's problems.
Do you think there are some jobs which women or men
should not
No, both women and men can do the same things and should
get the same pay.
When you are married, will you share the
housework with your husband?
Absolutely! I don't want to be just a housewife.
Do parents treat sons and daughters differently? Yes,
some fathers treat their sons differently to their daughters. Some mothers
treat their daughters differently to their sons. Also, in some families the
daughters must 'speak nicely' and they have to look smart but the boys don't
have to.
Are girls more sensitive than boys?
No, I don't think so, I think both girls and boys are
equally sensitive but boys don't like showing their feelings.
Do girls gossip more than
boys? No. I think they gossip the same amount but about different
What annoys you about boys?
When they are in a large group they act like idiots but if they are alone, they
are nice. It also annoys me that they pretend to be brave and never show their
feelings.
Will you marry?
If I find someone I like, yes!

©

Timesaver
  Reading Lessons • Photocopiable Activities

What's the Difference Between Boys
  and Girls?

1.
  Vocabulary  2. Scan reading
Match the words or
  phrases with the correct           In pairs, look at the following statements
  and definitions from the list below.discuss the questions about each
  statement:
1 . to mature
a) Is the statement about boys or
  girls?
2.
  practical
b) Who made the statement - a boy
  or a girl?
3.
  to treat people differently
4.
  restrictions
1. They definitely mature faster!
5.   sensitive
6.
  to gossip
                                                                                2.
  At fifteen they behave like adults and wear
7.
  to annoy someone smart clothes.
8.   an
  eating disorder
9.
  a contact sport
3. They think more simply. They
  don't complicate
10.
  to complicate something
1
  1 . creative
12.
  puberty
4.
  They are better at looking after children.
13.   to
  ignore someone
14.
  unforgiving
5.   They
  don't like showing their feelings.
a)   to
  chat about unimportant things6. They are impossible to argue with. They
  ignore you when they don't want to listen.
b)   good
  at artistic things like drawing, music, writing poems or telling stories
7.   When
  they are in large groups, they behave
c)   the time
  during teenage years when your bodylike idiots! starts changing
8.
  They are better at horse-riding and listening
d)
  to make something seem more difficult than itto people's problems.
e)   an illness that
  makes people eat too little, usually because they are worried about how they
  look
f)    to become more
  like an adult in the way you behave or look
g)
  to not listen to someone
h)
  rules that stop you doing something
i)     a sport
  where you can touch other people to get the ball off them, like rugby or
  basketball
k)  not
  wanting to forget arguments or believe that someone is sorry

l)
  good at making things work well or fixing
m) caring
  or emotional
n)  to
  make someone angry, but not very angry
o)
  to behave differently with different people

What's the Difference
Between Boys and Girls?

Barclay
Do boys or girls mature
faster? Girls definitely mature faster! At fifteen, we (boys) are still joking
around and enjoying doing silly things. At fifteen, girls behave like adults
and wear smart clothes.
Do girls worry about their appearance more?
Yes. Boys don't want to look stupid but they don't worry too much about their
appearance. Girls worry a lot more. Perhaps this is a reason why girls suffer
from eating disorders, for example Anorexia.
Do you act
differently when you are with girls? I talk about the same things to both boys
and girls. However, I probably behave less violently with girls.
What can boys do better than girls?
Play rugby and football because they are rough contact
sports.
Are boys
more practical than girls? In general, yes! This is because we can think more
simply. We don't complicate things! !
What can girls do better than boys?

Art subjects. Girls are more
creative than boys. Girls are also better at looking after children.
Do you think there are some jobs which women or men
should not
No they can both do the same jobs well.
When you are married, will
you share the housework with your wife?
Yes, I
will probably cook, clean and look after the children.
Do parents
treat sons and daughters differently? Not really. It depends on the parents.
Some parents worry more about daughters. I suppose this is fair, especially
during puberty. Also some parents try to encourage their daughters to be more
feminine. for example, the daughters must not swear but the sons can.
Are girls
more sensitive than boys? I'm not sure. I know some very sensitive boys.
However, in general boys are braver and less sensitive.
Do girls
gossip more? Yes. However, there are some boys at my school who gossip all the
time.
What annoys you about girls?
They are impossible to argue with. They ignore you when they don't want to
listen! Also, some girls are very unforgiving, they don't forget arguments or
mistakes. Another thing I dislike is that girls always expect boys to make the
'first move' if a boy and girl like each other.
Will you marry?

Probably, if I meet Miss Right!

Should We Eat Meat?

Answers
Adam
1
  Adam doesn't
  agree with what vegetarians say because they worry about animals but there
  is a lot of human suffering in the world.
2
  He thinks that if
  everyone stops eating meat, farmers will lose jobs and animals might die
  of hunger.
3
  He has never
  thought of being a vegetarian, but he doesn't like eating meat that still
  looks like an animal.
4
  He most enjoys
  eating roast chicken. He also likes hamburgers with ketchup, relish.
  lettuce and tomato.
5
  He thinks that
  being a vegetarian is a bad idea because it's difficult to substitute
  meat. Meat is nutritious and eating meat is natural. We have teeth that are
  designed for eating meat.
6
  He thinks that a
  vegetarian diet wouldn't suit him because he doesn't like lentils or soya and
  he thinks that some vegetarians
7
  He thinks that
  vegetarians miss eating meat because they start eating meat again after a
  year or two.
8
  He says that if
  half the family are vegetarian the person who cooks has to prepare
  two meals.
9
  He's going to
  spend Christmas with the entire family, including his grandparents.
10
  On Christmas Day,
  he's going to eat all the traditional things. including turkey.
Judith
1
  Judith is a
  vegan. She doesn't eat any meat, fish, dairy products or

2
  She gets protein
  from beans. soya and nuts.
3
  She says that
  when animals are exported they might travel for 30 hours without
  food or water and they can't move.
4
  Cruelty to
  animals isn't the only reason she doesn't eat meat. She is also worried about
  starving people in countries where grain is grown for animals and
  damage to the eco-system caused by eating fish.
5
  She thinks that
  the advantages of being vegetarian are: it's healthier; fewer vegetarians
  get heart disease and cancer. Also companies put a lot of chemicals in meat.
6
  She says the most
  difficult thing about being vegetarian is finding good quality, non-leather
  shoes.
7
  If she goes to
  someone's house and they offer her meat, she politely refuses and explains
  her reasons.
8
  She hasn't
  protested against cruelty to animals, but she might go on a demonstration
  soon.

9
  When she tells
  people she is a vegan they think she is stupid or strange at
  first. but when she explains they understand and often agree with her
10
  On Christmas
  Day, she's going to eat nut roast. soya sausages vegetarian gravy, potatoes
  and vegetables.

• Before reading
Vocabulary
The text
contains some words that the students will be unfamiliar with, so before they
read, elicit the following: to suffer, to export animals, economical, starving,
ecosystem, frequency, demonstration (a protest against something), relish (a
sauce or pickle), substitute, nutritious.
Predicting the text
Tell the students that they are going
to find out about the views of two teenagers. One is a vegan (she doesn't eat
any meat or animal products). The other is a meat-eater. Before the students
see the articles, ask them to work in pairs to predict what each teenager is
going to say.
 During reading
Reading comprehension
1)

For the jigsaw reading exercise,
divide the students into pairs, where one student is Student A and the other is
Student B. Give Student A the text about Judith and give Student B the text
about Adam. Give them a limited time period to read through their text.
2)
Give the
information sheet about Adam to Student A and the information sheet about
Judith to Student B. Tell the students they need to ask each other to complete
the information by asking each other questions. Encourage them to respond to
their partner's questions from memory referring back to the text only when it
is strictly necessary. Students will have to form their own questions for this
exercise, so you might want to practise making some of the questions as a class
before they begin the exercise.
3)
Finally, get them
to swap the original texts about Judith and Adam in order to check their
answers.
 Follow-up activities
Debate
Divide the class into two groups; We
should eat meat and We shouldn't eat meat. If you think opinions in the class
are equally divided, you can let the students choose which group to join.
However, if, for example, meat-eaters are more dominant, divide the students
equally into the two groups regardless of their personal views. Give the
students ten minutes to prepare their groups' points before the debate begins.
To give each student a chance to speak, tell the groups that students must take
turns to make points.

TIMESAVER READING LESSONS

Should We
Eat Meat?

Are you a vegetarian?
I used to be a vegetarian but now I am a vegan.
What's the difference
between a vegetarian and a vegan? Vegetarians don't eat meat or fish. Vegans do
not use any animal products. It means that I don't eat any meat, fish, dairy
products or honey.
Do you eat enough protein? People always ask me this!
The answer is definitely yes. My main source of protein are beans, soya and
nuts. People often worry that vegetarians and vegans don't eat enough protein.
However, a diet with too much protein can prove bad too. I eat a lot of fruit
and vegetables so I'm quite healthy. There's no doubt about it that a
vegetarian's diet is healthy.
Why did you choose to be a
vegetarian and then vegan? For many reasons. When I was eight, I was not happy
about eating animals. My older sister was already a vegetarian so I decided to
be one too. When I was thirteen, I found more reasons for not eating animals or
using animal products. I hate the way animals suffer before they are killed. If
they are exported, they might have to travel 30 hours without food or water and
they can't move.

Judith
Is cruelty to animals your main reason for being a
vegan? No, there are other reasons. For example in many countries, there are
people dying from hunger. They might be able to grow food to eat for themselves
but their fields have grain to feed animals. It's not economical use of land.
The animals eat a lot of grain but the starving people can't eat the animals
because one field of grain does not feed many animals. If there are not many
animals, not many people can eat. Also, I don't eat fish because they are part
of the food chain and it ruins the eco-system when we eat them.
What are the
advantages of being a vegetarian? It's a lot healthier. The frequency of heart
disease and cancer is less for vegetarians. I've also heard that food companies
put a lot of chemicals in meat. I don't think these chemicals are good for people.
Is it difficult to be a vegetarian? No. Restaurants
always have something for vegetarians. It's more difficult to be a vegan but I
usually find something. My main problem is finding good quality non-leather
shoes!
If you
go to someone's house and they offer you food that contains meat, do you eat
it? No way. very politely refuse and explain my reasons. People usually
understand.
Have you ever protested against cruelty to animals? No, but I might go on
a demonstration soon.
How do people react when you tell them that you are a
vegan?
At first they think that I'm stupid or strange. However,
when I explain, they understand and often agree with me.
What are you going to eat on Christmas Day? Nut roast,
soya sausages, vegetarian gravy, potatoes and vegetables. Then we might have a
vegan Christmas pudding if there is room in our stomachs. Last Christmas all my
family ate the same food as me and they enjoyed it so we are going to eat the
same thing again this year.

Timesaver Reading Lessons '
  Photocopiable Activities

Should We Eat Meat?

   Jigsaw reading         Student A
You must ask your partner questions to complete the
  following information about Adam.
Adam
1 . Adam doesn't agree with what vegetarians say because
  ...
2.
  He thinks that if everyone stops eating meat .
3.
  He has never thought of being a vegetarian, but ...
4.
  He most enjoys
  eating .
5.
  He thinks that being a vegetarian is a bad idea .
6.
  He thinks that a vegetarian diet wouldn't suit him because ,
7.
  He thinks that vegetarians miss eating meat because ...
8.
  He says that if half the family are vegetarian ...
9.
  He's going to spend Christmas with .
10.
  On Christmas
  Day, he's going to eat

   Jigsaw reading        Student B
You must ask you partner questions to complete the
  following information about Judith.
Judith
1 . Judith is a vegan. She doesn't eat ...
2.
  She gets protein from ...
3.
  She says that when animals are exported .
4.
  Cruelty to animals isn't the only reason she doesn't eat meat.
  She is also worried about ...
5.
  She thinks that the advantages of being vegetarian are: ...
6.
  She says the most difficult thing about being vegetarian is .
7.
  If she goes to
  someone's house and they offer her meat, she ...
8.
  She hasn't protested against cruelty to animals, but .
9.
  When she tells people she is a vegan .
10.
  On Christmas
  Day, she's going to eat ...

TIMESAVER READING LESSONS

Should

We

Eat

Meat?

Are you a vegetarian? No, I'm not.
Do you agree with what
1.-                                  vegetarians
say? Not really. Killing animals might be cruel but there are a lot of other
problems in the world too. Vegetarians always worry about animals but what
about the human suffering? Also, I don't think that being a vegetarian solves
the problem.
Why not?
If everyone stops eating meat, farmers will
lose jobs. Farm animals will not be able to eat and might die from hunger. I
believe that some farm animals have a nice life before they are
Have you ever thought about being a vegetarian?
No. People need
to enjoy what they eat and I enjoy meat. I admit that I don't like eating meals
that remind me of the animal. For example, when cooked fish still has the head
on, I don't like it.
What do you enjoy eating? My favourite meal
is roast chicken. I love it. I also like burgers with everything on them -
ketchup, relish, lettuce, tomato...Being a vegetarian is definitely a bad idea!

Why is being a vegetarian a bad
idea?
I think it's difficult to substitute meat.
It's nutritious and I like the taste, the smell and the texture. Humans have
eaten meat for millions of years. Eating meat is natural. We have teeth that
are specially designed for eating it.
Is anybody in
your family a

Adam

vegetarian?
No, and I doubt
  anybody will be one in the future. My brother

Do you think vegetarians are

thought
  about it but it might be a

mad?

problem for my mother. She

No, I don't think vegetarians are

usually cooks for my brother, my

mad. Well, some are a bit mad

sister
  and my dad. My dad adores

but not all of them, I just think a

eating things like steak therefore

vegetarian diet might suit a lot of

he will never be a vegetarian. If

people but not me. I don't like

half the family is vegetarian, the

lentils or soya. I think some

person who cooks has to prepare

vegetarians look ill, people can choose
  what they want to eat, If

two meals.

they are healthy and happy that is

What are you going to eat on

good. However, I want to choose

Christmas Day?

what I eat too and I want meat. I

Lot of things. The entire family

don't want vegetarians to tell me

including my grandparents are

that I mustn't eat meat. It's my

going
  to have a meal at our house.

body! Also some vegetarians talk

We are
  going to have all the

about cruelty to animals but they wear
  leather shoes. Another thing, many people stop eating meat but they start
  again after a year

traditional things, including turkey.

or two. This proves that they don't enjoy
it and that vegetarians miss eating meat. I doubt it's fun being a vegetarian!

Are You
  Prejudiced?

List the
following nationalities on the board: British, French,
German,
Italian, Spanish, Danish, Dutch, Polish, American, Australian. Ask the students
to describe the typical stereotypes of each nationality and then discuss
whether these stereotypes are fair.
Discussion
Extend the
discussion into a general discussion about prejudice with the following
questions:
1)   What is prejudice? Do you think you
are prejudiced sometimes? Has anyone ever treated you or someone that you know
in a prejudiced way?
2)   What types of people often suffer from
prejudice? What kinds of things are people often prejudiced about? How do you
think it feels when someone behaves in a prejudiced way towards you?
3)   In what ways can we stop prejudice in
society?
•
During reading I
feedback
Reading and Speaking
Ask the students to work in small groups. They must
read the text and look at the options together, explaining their choices to the
rest of the group. After completing the questionnaire, they should add up
scores. Read the analysis to the class. Do they think what it says about them
is true?
•
Follow-up
activities

Discussion

Timesaver Reading Lessons •
  Photocopiable Activities

Are You Prejudiced?

2. Roleplay

1. Grammarcards
(second conditional)
Use the second
  conditional to Student A Student B answer the following questions.You are the
  school headteacher. You are in trouble at school What would you do if...A
  student at your school has again. The headteacher thinks
1.   ...someone
  from a differentbeen bullying another student you are a bully, but you have
  country joined your class andwho comes from a different only made a few jokes
  about a invited you to his / her housecountry. The bully has been foreign
  student. You are sure for dinner?teasing them about their the student thinks
  your jokes
2.
  ...someone at school askedclothes and their accent. are funny.
  you to a big party, but told you your best friend couldStudent A Student B
  not come because he / she You are disabled and you need You are the manager
  of the was unfashionable and not a wheelchair. You go to a new new cinema in
  town. You like popular enough? cinema in town, but it has to hear what
  customers think
3.   ...you
  heard people calling stairs and no lift. You and your about the cinema, and
  you take your friend cruel names because friends cannot watch the film
  complaints seriously. But you he / she was overweight? you wanted to see.
  Complain don't want to spend a lot of to the manager. money improving your
  cinema.

Collect pictures (from
magazines, the Internet, photocopies from books, old photographs, etc) of
people who all have different jobs. You must know what their jobs are, but
their
jobs shouldn't be indicated in the pictures, for example, no
one should be wearing a uniform.
Keeping the students in the same groups as earlier,
hand some of the pictures to each one and ask the students to discuss what jobs
they think the people have. Set a time limit of five minutes for the discussion
and then ask the students to share their ideas with the class. The students
should give reasons about why they have come to their decisions.
After each group has spoken, reveal
the people's real jobs. Ask the students whether they think they were fair in
the opinions they formed of the people. Did they make judgements because people
were male, female, tall, short, fat, thin, fashionable or unfashionable?
Grammar (second conditional)
Look at the first situation in
activity 1, Grammar (second conditional) together. Ask three or four students
what they would do. Make them give full answers, using the second conditional.
Get the students to talk about the different situations in pairs. For homework,
you could ask them to write about each situation using the second conditional
or to write some new second conditional questions about prejudice like the ones
in the activity. They could then ask their partner their questions in the
following English lesson.
Roleplay
Ask the students to work in pairs and give each pair one of the cards from
activity 2, Roleplay cards.

Answers
Analysis 7-10 You are not
  prejudiced. You treat everyone with respect and you get to know people before
  you judge them. 11-16 You are not prejudiced but at times you notice
  differences between other people and yourself and you find them strange or
  amusing. Try not to stereotype people. 17-21 Oh dear! You are prejudiced! You
  judge people before you know them. The world is made up of many different
  types of people so you must learn to appreciate people who are different from
  you.

TIMESAVER READING LESSONS

Your school arranges an exchange with an
English school. You meet the English boy/girl who is going to stay with you for
the first time. He/she is not attractive and has unfashionable clothes. Before
you have spoken to him/her, what do you think?
a This person isn't cool enough to stay with
me C] b If he/she has a nice personality, I'll enjoy spending time with him/her
C] c Is this what all English people look like? Weird! C]
You have a chemistry teacher. He/she speaks
with a very strong regional accent. How do you react?

a Wait until you are outside the classroom then copy his/her accent to amuse
your friends C] b Think, "How am I supposed to believe anything he/she
says with a stupid voice like that?" c You notice his/her accent but it
makes no difference to you at all C]
You get on the bus. There
are only two seats left. One is next to an old lady and the other is next to
someone who looks about 40. What do you do?
a Sit next to the one who is nearest to you
C] b Sit next to the 40-year-old because the old lady might talk rubbish to you
or smell bad c Sit next to the old lady. She reminds you of your grandmother.
[2
You go with one of your parents to the
garage because the car is broken. You discover the mechanic is a woman. What is
your reaction?
a We'd better go somewhere else. She might
not be good enough C] b That's not unusual C] c It's good to see that men and
women are doing the same jobs these days C]
B Imagine you are
the boss of a company and you need to employ a receptionist. You are sent two
CVs (curriculum vitae Latin): a list of what you have done in your life). One
of them is from a wheelchair user. Which person do you employ?
a The person who is not the wheelchair
user C]

Animal Hospital

Tell the students that they are going to read an article about an animal
hospital and ask them to write a list of things that they think might happen
there.
Vocabulary
Ask your
students to complete activity 1, Vocabulary.
• During reading I
feedback
Reading for gist
Ask the students to read through the text to find the answers to the
following questions:
1)   What is the animal hospital for?
2)   What kind of work do people have to do
at the animal hospital? What kinds of animals go to the hospital?
3)   What happens to stray animals that go
to the hospital?
Reading and Vocabulary
As part of
the feedback, ask the students to think of words that describe:
 the people who work at the animal hospital  the animals that go there  owners who abandon their animals
• Follow-up activities

Grammar (passives)
Ask the
students the following questions about the animal hospital:
Who looks
after the animals in the hospital? (nurses)
Who brings
in animals to the hospital? (owners or
people who
have found them)
Who finds new homes for stray animals? (the RSPCA) When the students have
answered the questions, ask them to make sentences from them using passives.
For example, The animals are brought into hospital by their owners or people
Who have found them.
After the
three sentences have been made as a class, ask the students to complete
activity 2, Grammar individually. Remind them that for this they will have to
use different tenses.
Speaking
Ask the
students whether they would like to work in the animal hospital. What are the
advantages and disadvantages of the job?
Designing a poster or leaflet
Ask the
students to design a poster or leaflet that explains one of the following
things:
 Why you shouldn't buy animals as
Christmas presents
 How to look after an animal properly
 The work that is done in the animal hospital and why it is so important

Answers
1.
  Vocabulary le,
  2i, 3b, 4h, 5j, 6c, 7 f, 8a, 9g, IOd.
2.
  Grammar: Passive
  sentences
1
  The animal
  hospital was built to help stray animals and owners who can't afford to take
  their animals to the vet.
2
  Some animals in
  the hospital have been abandoned by their owners.
3
  Many stray
  animals never see their owners again, but some are returned to them by the
  RSPCA.
4
  Most animals
  that don't have homes were bought as Christmas presents.

Timesaver Reading Lessons '
  Photocopiable Activities

Animal Hospital

1.
Vocabulary    2.
  Grammar:
        Match
  the words from the article with their definitions.                                    passive
  sentences
1 . operating a) an injection that
  prevents you getting a Complete the sentences about the theatre disease
  animal hospital using the passive.
2.
a patient b) a piece of paper that tells you how much
  Use the tenses that are given at the end of each sentence. money you owe for
  something
4.
  a companion c) a pleased feeling that you usually have1 . The
  animal animals hospital and (to ownersbuild) to because you have done a job
  wellhelp stray
5.
  anaestheticwho can't afford to take their d) to leave someone
  or something
6.
  satisfactionanimals to the vet. (past simple) e) the room in a
  hospital where doctors
7.
  irresponsible2.
  Some animals in the hospital
perform operations
8.
  a vaccination(to abandon) by their owners. f) careless(present
  perfect)
9.
  stressful
g) an adjective that describes something that
10.  to
  abandon is hard work and makes you feel worried3. Many stray animals never
  see someonetheir owners again, but some h) a friend or someone who is always
  with you
or something(to return)
  to them by the
i)   someone who
  comes to hospital forRSPCA. (present simple) treatment4. Most animals that
  don't have
j)
  an injection that stops you feeling painhomes (to buy) as
  Christmas when you have an operation.presents. (past simple)

                                                             ©

TIMESAVER READING LESSONS

Animal Hospital
It's like
any other hospital. It's open 24 hours, 7 days a week. It has busy nurses,
operating theatres ambulances and worried people in

the waiting room. The only
difference is that the patients are animals. We visited a big RSPCA (Royal Society
For
The
Prevention of Cruelty To Animals) hospital in London.
The hospital normally
helps animals owners who cannot pay expensive vets' bills. One of the nurses
explains, "Many of the owners are old or live alone with their pets. Their
pets are important to them. Sometimes their pets are their main companions so
we help to keep them healthy."
All the nurses have to do a two-year course
before they can work there. They need to learn to give anaesthetics, do X-rays
and put on bandages. It's not easy when you have to put a bandage on a rabbit's
broken legs or an owl's wing!
The nurses agree that the
best part of the job is the satisfaction when the animal recovers and the
owners are happy. They also agree that the worst part is when owners are
irresponsible or cruel. They say this is the reason why the hospital is always full.
People do not look after their animals properly. Especially at Christmas,
people buy cats and dogs as 'cute presents' but then are too lazy to pay for
the vaccinations and collars for the animals. People often get tired of pets
when they get too big or make a mess. The nurses all agree that sometimes the
job is very stressful if you love animals. This is because it is sad to see
animals that are either sad or ill.
Most of the animals are
people's pets but the hospital also cares for strays. Strays are animals
without owners or homes. Some of the strays have simply lost their owners but
in other cases their owners have abandoned them, especially in the case of
dogs. The nurses explain that they have a lot of animals that have escaped from
houses. For example, snakes and rare owls. The RSPCA tries to find owners for
these animals.
Unfortunately, they sometimes have too many animals to
look after and they have to kill them as painlessly as possible. This is most
common after Christmas,

The hospital also looks after wildlife. This year, their patients have included
injured fox cubs, badgers and friendly neighbourhood birds.

The Fashion
  Spies

Divide
your students into pairs and hand out activity 1, Discussion. After the
students have interviewed each other about fashion, go through the questions as
a class.
Vocabulary
Before the
students look at the article, put the following I words and phrases on the
board: a mall, a trend, a waste, under pressure. If the students are
able to, define these words as a class. Otherwise, ask the students to look up
the words in their dictionaries.
• During reading
Reading for gist
a)   Tell the students they are about to
read an article about fashion spies - kids paid by companies to help them predict what teenagers
will want to buy. Ask them where they think companies look for these kids and
what they ask them. They should read the text to see if they are correct.
b)  Ask the students to read the
descriptions that clothing companies give to teenagers and pick the one that best describes them.
Which group do they think it is best to belong to? Which group would they least
like to belong to?
Reacting to the text

Discuss the students' feelings
about companies using 'fashion spies'. Ask the following questions:

What do
you think about companies using fashion spies? How do you feel about the way they
categorise young people?
What would you do if you were asked to be a fashion spy? Do you think that
young people spend too much money on clothes and cosmetics?
• Follow-up activities
Vocabulary
a) Ask the class to name five types of clothing that are very fashionable
and write their suggestions on the board. Next, ask them to name five types of
clothing that are very unfashionable and add them to the board. Discuss with
the students which clothes they most like and most dislike. b) Tell the
students to imagine that they are a researcher for a fashionable clothing company.
They must write five fashion predictions for next year.
Personality quiz
The personality quiz, How fashionable
are you? is intended to give a light-hearted insight into the students'
attitude towards fashion. After the students have finished the quiz, ask them
to add up their scores then read them the analysis. From the results of the
quiz, ask the students whether they would be a suitable fashion spy.

Answers
2. How fashionable are you? - analysis
5 - 8 Fashion isn't very
  important to you. You prefer to wear clothes that are comfortable. You don't
  care what other people think about your appearance. 10 - 12 Weil Done! You
  like to be fashionable but you also have individual tastes. You'd never wear something
  you didn't like just because it was fashionable. 13 - 15 You are a fashion
  victim! You wear fashionable clothes, but you are not individual. You only
  wear clothes you think other people will like. It's time to start buying
  clothes you like.

Timesaver Reading Lessons '
  Photocopiable Activities

The Fashion Spies

  1. Discussion          2.
  Personality quiz ' How fashionable are you?
         Discuss
  the                        A You see a really cool pair of shoes             think
  I'm unfashionable.
following in a shop, but
  they're very expensive. Of course. My mum always chooses questions with What
  do you do? my clothes. a partner. Buy them. I always spend a lot of
D Your friend comes to school Do you consider     money on clothes.          wearing
  the same coat as you. yourself to be           Leave them in
  the shop. You can buy     What do you think? fashionable?cheaper shoes
  somewhere else.   I hate it when people copy my Buy them if they're good
  quality and
Why / why not?a clothes. I'll have to buy a new coat.
  they're going to last a long time.
What are
  yourI'm happy he/she likes my coat. favourite items         B You want to buy
  a pair of jeans.      It means I look good.
                                                       Which
  do you choose?                                        I'm not
         of clothing?                                                                                the
  only person who buys
The most comfortable ones. cheap clothes. The most
  fashionable ones.
What
  influencesThe most unusual ones.     a E Do you like shopping for clothes?
  the kind ofI enjoy shopping when l - find clothes clothes youC Your mum buys
  you a jumper for          I really like, but I only go shopping                                             your
  birthday, but you don't like it.         when I need something.
                                                       Do
  you wear it?                                                     I love
  shopping. have to keep up
         How often do                  Yes.
  I don't want to upset my mum,               with fashion.
you buy new but I hope my friends don't
  see me. I hate shopping. prefer it when my clothes? No. I don't want my
  friends to mum does my shopping for me.

O

TIMESAVER READING LESSONS
The Fashion Spies
Did you know that many clothes companies employ "fashion
spies"? The companies want to find out what's going to be cool. Reebok
sends people out every few months to malls and high streets with new shoes to
find out which ones kids like best. Also, companies interview the coolest kids
they can find in big cities like New York about clothing, what they like to eat
and drink, and what they like to do in their free time.
Clothes companies categorise teenagers by how cool they
are. Look at the descriptions and tick the one that best describes you.
Edge kids
People who think it's
cool to do something that nobody else is doing. They often change their look
and consider themselves to be anti-fashion. They stop following a trend as soon
as the influencers start wearing them.
Early adopters
Cool kids who get their ideas about what's
fashionable from the edge kids.
Influencers
Kids who follow fashion trends early on and
attract other teens.
Conformers
People who follow the trends when the majority of people
are wearing them.
What do you think?
Following fashion is a waste of time and
money.
Clothes and appearance are very important
to me.
Young people are under a lot of pressure to spend money
on fashionable clothes.
Fashion is fun but I don't take it too
seriously.
©

When Don't You Tell the Truth?

Discuss lying with your students. Ask the following questions: Why do
people lie? Do you ever lie? Who do you lie to most often? What was the last
lie you told? When is it
OK to lie?
What are the consequences of telling a lot of lies?
Put the students into groups of three or four and ask them to make a list
of the most common lies they think people tell.

Elicit or teach the following vocabulary: to hold back on / restrict the
truth, to be found out, tight, a leaflet, to chat someone up, minor things.
• During reading I
feedback
Reading for gist
As the students read the article, ask them to underline
any lies or reasons for lying people mention that also appear on the list they
made. After they have finished reading the article, ask the class which of
their anticipated lies appeared in the text. Discuss the students' reaction to
what the teenagers say about lying. Which lies do they find acceptable /
unacceptable? Have they been in any similar situations themselves? Which
person's attitude to lying is closest to their own?
Reading comprehension

Timesaver Reading Lessons '
  Photocopiable Activities

When Don't You Tell the Truth?

  1. Comprehension                             2.
  Dilemmas
Complete the sentences about the
        Australian
  teenagers.                                       Dilemma card 1                                  Dilemma
  card 2
1.
  Sheena thinks the problem with see your best friend's
  Your friend cheats in a test You girlfriend / boyfriend in town by copying
  your answers, with another boy / girl. Do but the teacher thinks you
2.  Sheena's
  last lie was that ...         you tell your best friend?            cheated.
  Do you tell your
3.  Zina
  often lies to avoid . teacher the truth?
4.
  Zina's mum found out about her lie when .
5.
  Hugh lies about minor things
                                                                                Dilemma
  card 3                                     Dilemma card 4
                                                                                You
  hear a group of people          Your best friend buys an
6.
  Hugh lied about going to his saying bad things about your expensive
  jacket to wear girlfriend's house because ... friend. Your friend asks you to
  on an important night out.
7.  Ned thinks that people
  often lie tell / him her what they said. You think it is horrible. because
  ... If you tell the truth your Do you tell the truth? friend will be very
  upset.
8.
  Ned can't remember the last lie What do you do? he told because ...

Ask the students to re-read the
article to complete activity 1, Comprehension.
 Follow-up activities
What's the lie? (game)
Write three facts about yourself on
the board, numbered 13. One of them must be a lie. Ask the students to write
down the number of the lie. Ask the students which fact they chose before you
reveal the lie. Next, divide the class into two groups. Tell each student to
write two true facts and one lie about themselves. Ask them to take turns
reading what they have written to the other team. If the team guesses the lie,
they win one point. The winning team is the one with the most points.
Dilemmas
Divide the class into four groups. Give each group a dilemma card from
activity 2, Dilemmas. Give the groups 5 minutes to discuss their dilemmas, then
hold a feedback session where someone from each group explains their decision.

Answers
1
  Sheena thinks
  the problem with lying is she is often found out;
2
  Sheena's last lie
  was that she didn't smoke (but she has given up now);
3
  Zina often lies
  to avoid hurting people;
4
  Zina's mum found
  out about her lie when she washed Zina's trousers;
5
  Hugh lies about
  minor things like denying eating all the ice-cream or breaking the TV;
6
  Hugh lied about
  going to his girlfriend's house because he didn't think his parents would
  trust him;
7
  Ned thinks that
  people often lie because they want to sound 'cool';
8
  Ned can't remember
  the last lie he told because he has told so many.

TIMESAVER READING LESSONS

When Don't You Tel l

Sheena

What was the last lie

I usually lie to protect myself or

that you told?

so that I
  don't hurt someone's

I told my parents that I was going

feelings.
  I think I lie most to my

to spend the evening with my

parents but I don't really lie that

friends but I spent it at my

much. I don't lie very often but I

girlfriend's house. Her parents

do hold back the truth quite a

were there
  but I didn't think my

lot. In other words, I don't tell

parents would trust me.

the whole truth. Some people may consider
  restricting the truth

Zina

and lying to be the same thing.

I normally lie to avoid hurting

But the problem with lying is

people. I also lie if there is

that I have often been found out.

something that I am supposed to do but haven't done it,
  for

What was the last lie

example, my homework! Other

that you told?

times
  when I lie are when I am not

I told my parents that I didn't

allowed to do something. Last

smoke when I did. I have given

summer
  I went to a huge outdoor

up now though!

festival. I wanted to wear my
  favourite trousers which are really

Hugh

tight. My mum said I wasn't

Everybody lies sometimes. I lie to

allowed to wear them because she

keep myself out of trouble and

didn't want loads of guys to chat

so others don't get hurt. I guess I

me up and flirt with me. I

lie to my family the most because

promised not to wear them but

I am with them a lot. I normally

then I took them with me

lie about really minor things. I

and put them on later.

deny eating
  all the ice cream or breaking the TV.

Unfortunately, while I

the Truth?
was at the festival, I
picked up a leaflet about it and put it in my trouser pocket. I was stupid
enough to leave it there and my mother found it when she did the washing. She
was furious.
What was the last lie that you told?
I lied about when I was born so I could go and see a
film with an MA certificate. (This means you are only allowed to see it if you
are over 16.)
Ned
When I don't want to get into trouble, lie. However,
just because I have admitted that doesn't mean that I lie any more than anyone
else. People often lie to me when they are trying to sound 'cool'. They
exaggerate or pretend that they know what they are talking about. It's
something that most people do. it's not really dishonest, it's just that you
don't want to sound boring or look like an idiot.
What was the last lie that
you told? There are so many that I don't remember.

©

Mixed-race
Discuss
the problems faced by people in mixed-race relationships. Ask the following
questions.
7-1 How
might they be treated differently from people in same-race relationships?
-J How
might friends and parents react?
-J Why
do people from some religions prefer their family to marry someone of their own
race?
-J Do
you think that young people are more tolerant of mixed-race relationships than
the older generation?
Vocabulary
Before the
students look at the article, elicit the following words and phrases: to target
someone, nationalist, harassment, to reject, verbal, hate mail, Muslim,
Orthodox Jews, to convert to. The article contains many phrasal verbs, so
follow this with activity 1, Vocabulary (phrasal verbs). Students should not
move on to activity 2 until they have read the text.
• During reading
Reading for gist
Ask the students to predict the answers to the following questions then
read the text to see whether their predictions are correct.

Timesaver Reading Lessons '
  Photocopiable Activities

Mixed-race Relationships

1.
Vocabulary  2.
  Gap fill (phrasal verbs)
(phrasal verbs)       Use the phrasal verbs from the vocabulary
  exercise to fill the gaps. Match the phrasal verbs           You will have to
  change thé tenses of some of the verbs. with the correct definitions.
                                                            1.
  Most non-white kids consider themselves British when born in
2. go
  out   Britain and have ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... .......... there.
3.
carry on
2.
  Sometimes kids feel that they are .. their families
4.
let down              if they
  have a relationship with someone of a different race.
5. grow
  up
6. split up                                                                                .
  with someone from a different ethnic background is often the cause of a lot
  of arguments with your
a)
  end a relationshipfamily and friends.
b)
  become an adult
c)
  have a relationship          4. It's not easy to continue a
  relationship when your parents and
d)
  continue              friends are against it, so a lot of
  mixed-race couples
e)
  disappoint
f)
  stop trying
5.
  Despite pressure
  from family and friends, some mixed-race couples                                          . seeing each other.
6.
  We should never
  ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... .......... trying to change people's racist
  attitudes.

Why do British cities have very
ethnically diverse populations?
Relationships
What kinds
of harassment do people in mixed-race relationships often face?
What might
happen if someone from a strict religious group chooses a partner their parents
don't approve of? How do many people believe mixed-race marriages affect their
culture?
Discussion
Read
Suzie's story as a class. Discuss her problem and ask the students to suggest
possible solutions. After the discussion, ask them to rank the advice below,
giving each statement a mark out of ten.
Gap fill
Ask the
students to use the phrasal verbs from the earlier exercise to complete the
photocopiable exercise activity 2, Gap fill about mixed-race relationships.
Letter
Ask the students to imagine that they received the
letter from Suzie. It's their job to write a response to the letter, offering
support and advice. Alternatively, ask the students to imagine that they are
deeply in love with someone whom their parents won't accept. They must write a
letter explaining how it makes them feel.

Answers
1.
Vocabulary If, 2c,
3d, 4e, 5b, 6a.
2.
Gap fill 1 grown
up, 2 letting down, 3 going out, 4 break up, 5 carry on, 6 give up.

Mixed-race Relationships
Mixed-race relationships are common in Britain, especially in
multicultural urban areas. Unfortunately, mixed-race couples are still often
the target of racial abuse.

Britain's ethnic population Visitors to
Britain always notice that the cities have very ethnically-diverse populations.
There are 2 main reasons for this:
A lot of the 5.6 per cent of the UK's ethnic minority
population are from ex-colonies of the British Empire. After the Second World
War, people from the colonies were invited to come and work in Britain. So many
men had been killed in the war that the workforce had grown too small.
The British government
also permits a number of people to enter the country if they are in danger in
their home countries. These people are called asylumseekers.
Separate communities
There are areas where some people of the
same race have formed their own communities. East London, for example, has a
large Bangladeshi population where there are Bangladeshi restaurants, shops and
a mosque.
However, young people from
ethnic minority backgrounds are integrated into British society and usually
consider themselves British.
Harassment
White nationalists are
responsible for many race attacks and, among other things, they believe that
mixed-race relationships are wrong. However, some attacks on mixed-race couples
come from their families, some from people they know at school or work, or
• Suzie's Story ,
even from friends. A lot of the attacks are verbal, but
sometimes they also receive 'hate mail' or are physically attacked.
Religion and race Muslims, Orthodox Jews and other
strict religious groups prohibit inter-racial relationships. Sometimes people
convert to a religion before they marry into a religious family. In some
communities, the tradition of 'arranged marriages' (when your parents choose
your partner for you) is still common. Children who fall in love with someone
their parents didn't choose are sometimes rejected by their families and live
apart from them.
Culture
and traditions It is sometimes thought that if you marry someone of a different
race, your own culture and traditions will be lost. Happily, there are a lot of
mixed-race families in the UK which shows that this isn't true. In fact,
mixed-race marriages often help people to understand each other better, and
their cultures are richer as a result.

I'm a British girl. / was born in London and I've grown
up here. I started seeing Jamie a year ago, when I was 16 Jamie's parents are
from Sri Lanka, but Jamie grew up in London, just like me. We are soul mates
(we just think alike). When I see Jamie I don't see his colour.
When
our parents found out we were going out together, they were so angry. Jamie's
mum and dad said / could never understand how life has been for them because
they aren't white. My parents said that if we had kids they wouldn't know what
race they were. We laughed at that because we were only 16 and we hadn't
thought about having children! My brother said that if I carried on seeing
Jamie I'd be letting my family down.
Other couples who never had the same problems as us
have split up, Jamie and I are still going strong, but sometimes I have felt
like giving up. I still don't talk about it with my family and this makes me
sad because / know they love me. But what can I do?
O

'We Have
  Simple Lives'

Divide the class into small groups and ask them to make
a list of things that have been invented in the past 100 years that they would
find it hard to manage without, for example, cars, televisions, electricity or
computers.
Vocabulary
Keeping
the same groups, ask the students to look up the meanings of the following
words in their dictionaries: weird, modesty, corrupt. morals, carpentry,
vanity, backward (meaning uncivilised), to tease, fussy.
 During reading
Reading for gist
Tell the students that they are about to read about the
Amish people of America. They are a religious group who choose to live without
modern-day comforts, such as cars, electricity and modern clothes. Ask them to
read the article a first time and make notes on how life for the Amish is
different from their lives. Before they read, explain to the students that the
article uses American spelling and grammar. Can they find the American word for
'maths' (math) and the American spelling for 'jewellery' (jewelry)? You could
also explain that eighth grade is the US school year when most students are
thirteen or fourteen years old.
Reading comprehension

Timesaver
  Reading Lessons ' Photocopiable Activities

'We Have Simple Lives'
1.
  Comprehension    2.
  Roleplay cards
According to the text, are the
  following sentences true or false?
        Put
  a 'T' for true and an 'F' for false next to each sentence.                          Student
  A
You
  are a very traditional
1 . Amish people
  aren't allowed to keep animals. [2                                      of
  the Amish. You don't member
2.
  The Amish break the law when they let their children leave      like
  an aspect of the modern school at 13. [2  world to come into your community.
  You must argue
3.
  The Amish are happy for tourists to visit them. C]          against
  Student B who is trying
4.
  The biggest Amish community is in Pennsylvania. C]     to
  introduce a modern invention.
5.
  Amish women aren't allowed to wear buttons. [2
Student B
6.
  Amish men can't cut their hair. [2 You are a more modern member
  of the Amish. You want to bring
7.
  The Amish are a new religious group. [2              a modern
  invention into the
8.
  Most Amish communities have a telephone box and some        community
  to make people's communities have a tractor. [2                lives easier,
  e.g. an alarm clock
(with batteries), a bicycle, a
9.
  Amish children are often curious about the outside world. [2    torch.
  You must try to persuade
10.
  Most Amish children leave the religion when they are older. [2  Student
  A to accept the invention.

Ask the students re-read the
text and complete activity 1, Comprehension.
 Follow-up activites
Discussion
Get your students to discuss the following questions in pairs or small
groups.
Do you understand the Amish way of life? Would you like to live in an
Amish community? Do you find any of the Amish views difficult to understand?
What do you like / dislike about the modern world? What do you think of the
tourists who go to watch the Amish? Would you like to go to an Amish school?
Roleplay
Divide the
class into pairs and give each pair a card from activity 2, Roleplay cards.

Answers
1. Comprehension 1 false, 2 false, 3 false, 4 true, 5 true, 6 false, 7
  false, 8 true, 9 true, 10 false.

'We Have
Simple Lives'
Many people's ideas of
the typical American is a loud person who boasts about their possessions and
owns all the latest technology. The Amish are the complete opposite of this.

Most
Americans would die without a car (or at least they think they would). The
Amish don't have cars; they use horses. They don't have televisions either.
In fact they don't have
electricity. They don't need it because they don't have radios, computers or
anything electrical all. Some people might feel sorry for them or think they
are mad but this is the way that the Amish have chosen to live. They think that
we're the weird ones.
Separate lives
Amish
people try to be as simple as possible. Modesty, family and community are the
most important things to them. They don't want to be a part of the modern world
as it is too complicated and corrupt. They live independently in their own
community. They even have their own schools which only have one or two
classrooms. They learn reading, writing, math and morals. The big difference
from regular American school is that they learn nothing about the world outside
of their community and they do not continue their education beyond eighth
grade. The Amish do not think their children need more school education after
the age of thirteen because they will either do farm work, carpentry or help
with the family business. In 1972, the US supreme court allowed them to stop
school at thirteen.

'Like animals in the zoo' Amish people are not easy to interview. They are very
private people and they don't like people taking their photographs. They say
photographs steal their souls and are a sign of vanity. The biggest Amish
community in the USA is in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where there are 18,000
Amish people. In the summer it is visited by millions of people. One Amish
teenager said he felt like an animal in a zoo. Some visitors shout things such
as 'Why are you so backward?' laugh at their clothes or knock their hats off as
a joke. They must feel angry when they are teased but demonstrating anger and
violence are against the Amish beliefs.
Fashion is vanity
Unfortunately for the Amish, their appearance is perfect
for photo-hungry tourists. They look like they are from a film about the
eighteenth century. The women are not allowed to cut their hair, wear jewelry
or make-up. They aren't even allowed to wear clothes with buttons because
buttons are too fussy. Men have to wear suits and socks with a plain shirt.
Changing
with the times The Amish are a religious group that was started in the 1720s.
They are united in their beliefs. Many people can respect that but can't
understand how the Amish can live the way that they do. They are frequently
asked why they make life harder for themselves and when they will modernise
themselves. In truth, most Amish communities have one telephone box for
emergencies and perhaps one tractor for very heavy work. Communities often have
meetings to discuss whether to accept a particular aspect of the modern world
and what effect it will have on them. The young Amish are inevitably curious
about things outside their community. Some occasionally listen to music or even
try in-line skating (using a bicycle is forbidden because it is too fast), but
when they confirm their beliefs at age thirteen, they promise to accept Amish
rules and reject such things. Only one in five leave the Amish community. The
Amish say this shows that people enjoy living the way that they do.

Teenage Depression

•
As a
class, discuss the causes of teenage depression.
Vocabulary I Prediction
Before the
students read the article, ask them to work in pairs to complete activity 1,
Vocabulary to familiarise themselves with the vocabulary. Ask the students to
use the vocabulary to predict some of the things the text might say.
Explain
to the students that 'Young Minds' is a British charity that works to promote
the mental health of children and young people.

During reading I
feedback
Reading comprehension

Timesaver Reading Lessons •
  Photocopiable Activities

Teenage Depression

1.
Vocabulary2.
  Comprehension   3. Roleplay cards
Match the words or phrasesAccording to
  the text are the from the article with theirfollowing sentences true or
  false? Student A definitions.  (Put a 'T' for true and an 'F' for You
  are depressed
        1 . broken home                                        false
  next to each sentence.)                         because you think you
2. to
  snap at someone       1 . Teenagers don't want to        are ugly. You try to
  talk
3. to
  lose touch      become adults.             to people but they just
4. to
  snap out of it tell you that you're being
                                                                                2. Teenagers often don't
  know                          silly. You are desperate to
5.
to cope how to get help with their
6.
bluelose weight
  and become depression.
7. help
  linemore attractive.
8. self-injury           3.
  Other people are usually the
9. counsellor           first
  to see you are depressed. Student B
4. A common symptom of       You are worried about a) harm that you do
  to         your friend. He/she is
teenage behaviour is
  moody
yourself deliberately,
  eg, behaviour. C] depressed about the way cutting or burning yourself       look,
  but you can't
they
b) to recover
  quickly  5. It is easy to recover quickly
  understand it because he/ c) a family where the parentsfrom serious
  depression. C] she is good-looking.
                                have
  separated6. Talking to a person who is                                           Recently
  your friend has
d)  to deal successfully with
  adepressed is a good way lost a lot of weight and situation to help. started
  to look ill.
e)  to lose contact 7.
  Telephone help lines are a f) a telephone advice service private way to talk
  about
g)
  a person professionally your problems. trained to talk
  to people about their problems8. Anyone can be a counsellor. CI
h)  to
  speak to someone angrily9. Everyone feels miserable
i)
  unhappy (informal)sometimes. [A

Ask the students to read the
true and false sentences in activity 2, Comprehension and tell them to
underline the relevant information in the text as they read. Check the answers
as a class, referring to the text where necessary. Ask the students to re-write
the false statements so that they are true.

Follow-up
activities
Discussion
As a class, discuss how people feel when they are
depressed and how you can help them. What are the things that you must avoid
saying or doing when someone is depressed? Other than friends or family, who
can people go to for help when they are depressed?
Roleplay
Divide the students into pairs and give each student
one card from activity 3, Roleplay cards. After all of the pairs have acted out
the situation, ask them to write a new roleplay situation. They must write
roleplay cards for Student A and Student B. Get them to swap their cards with
another pair and act out the roleplay in front of the class.

Answers
1.
  Vocabulary lc,
  2h, 3e, 4b, 5d, 6i, 7f, 8a, 9g.
2.
  Comprehension 1
  false, 2 true, 3 true, 4 true, 5 false, 6 true, 7 true, 8 false, 9 true.

Teenage
Depression
According to
Young Minds, in a school of 1,000 pupils aged 14 -18,
50 of them might be
seriously depressed. As many as 1 in 5 could be affected at some time. We
investigate why more and more teenagers are suffering from mental illness.

A difficult time Being a teenager has always been
difficult. Emotions and moods change rapidly. Many teenagers feel confused and
afraid when the safety of childhood is left behind. These days, experts say
that things are even harder. Peter Wilson, the Director of Young Minds, says,
"We live in particularly difficult times for a growing youngster. There
are huge cultural pressures and a lot of broken homes. Kids may have difficult
relationships with parents, or in other cases, have no one to support
them."
No one is happy all the time Everyone feels unhappy,
lonely or misunderstood from time to time. But a small number of teenagers
become depressed for weeks or months without change, and they begin to find
that they can't continue with their normal lives.
Many
teenagers don't want to ask, or don't know how to ask for help. Perhaps they
don't even realise they are depressed. It is usually other people - friends,
parents and teachers, who identify the symptoms of depression and offer help.
One teenager explained that after a close friend had died, "l stopped
believing that anything could be any good anymore. I became very aggressive, I
snapped at my parents and I lost touch with friends. Things were bad for me for
a year until, fortunately for me, a teacher noticed that things were wrong.
"
If you recognise these
symptoms in yourself or a friend, there are lots of things that can be done.
You can't expect yourself, or someone else to just 'snap out of it'. You need
to find ways to cope with the feelings.
How to
help yourself or someone else If you are worried about a friend, listen to
their problems and try to be sympathetic, and be patient. Most importantly, try
and help them find help. If you're feeling blue yourself, don't panic - you
need to try and understand your emotions. You are not the first person to feel
like this. Try writing
©
things down in a diary or
talking to a friend. Perhaps writing a poem or song, drawing a picture or
listening to music will help you express and understand your emotions. But most
importantly of all, do something you enjoy, whether it's watching W, playing
sport or just going for a walk.
Talk to someone It is a good
idea for teenagers who feel depressed to try and talk to someone they like and
feel comfortable with. But if they don't want to talk to friends and family,
there are lots of people who are there to help. They could talk to their
teacher or school nurse or maybe their doctor. Alternatively, there are
telephone helplines which give confidential help to anyone with a problem.
Talking to someone might help others to cope with how they are feeling.
There is someone who can help Sometimes, depression can
become a very serious problem, and teenagers think about trying to escape their
feelings. They might consider suicide or selfinjury. When the problem has got
so bad, professional help from qualified specialist counsellors is vital.
Counsellors are trained to talk to people about their worries and problems.
It is important to remember that everyone feels sad
and unhappy sometimes, it is natural. Remember that, no matter how bad you
feel, the feelings of sadness and happiness will come to an end.

Being Beautiful

•
Discuss with the students what being beautiful means and ask
them what steps people take to be beautiful. After the discussion, ask the
students to work in groups to list ten things that they do to improve their
appearance. For example: brush hair, dye hair, cut hair, put on make-up, use
hair gel / wax / mousse / spray, shave, file nails, wear nice clothes, pluck
eyebrows, wear jewellery, go on a diet, exerase.

Hand out activity 1, Vocabulary. When they have
completed the vocabulary exercise, ask the students to predict some of the
things the article says using the words and phrases from the activity.

During reading I
feedback
Speaking

During feedback, ask the
students what they think about the changes people make to their appearance.
What do they consider to be acceptable and what do they think is unacceptable?

Follow-up
activities
Discussion
Ask the
students to work in the same groups as earlier and hand out pictures of normal
people, celebrities and models from magazines. Ask the students to divide them
into categories such as: beautiful / not beautiful; false / natural. They
should then explain why they have categorised the pictures as they have and
discuss their choices.
Roleplay
Divide the
students into pairs and give each pair one of the cards from activity 2,
Roleplay cards.

Reading comprehension
the different ways people change their
appearance or try to stay young

Timesaver
  Reading Lessons ' Photocopiable Activities

Being
  Beautiful

1.
Vocabulary  2.
  Roleplay cards
Match the words or phrases taken from the
  article with their definitions. Student A Student B
         1
  . beauty regime                                                      Your
  friend wants cosmetic      There is a part of your face
2.
Elizabethan         surgery on part of their or body that you
  have
3. stencil   face
  or body that you    always disliked. You want
4.
tame       think
  is fine. Try to.             to use your savings to have
5.
proportioned        persuade
  him / her not     cosmetic surgery.
6.
beauty is in the eye of the beholder       to have the
  operation.
7.
to afford
8.
cryogenics
                                                                                Student
  A                                         Student B
a)
  to have enough money to buy   People always criticise the          Your
  friend always wears something way you dress. They say you      old, scruffy
  clothes and
b)   ordinary, not extreme        are
  scruffy, but your clothes            never looks good. Try to
c)
  a routine for looking after the skin are comfortable and you
  persuade your friend to and body like them. Appearance isn't change his / her
d)
  balanced              important to you.           appearance.
e)
  a period of time in the 1 500s - 1600s named after Queen
  Elizabeth l.
                                                                                Student
  A                                         Student B
f)
  the process of freezing a dead body
Your mum always tells
  Your daughter is always until science has found a way to you off for wearing
  trying to improve her bring it back to life appearance. You think she
:
  make-up and spending
g)
  different people see beauty in all your money on is too
  obsessed with the
different ways clothes. You wish she way she looks.
  You wish she h) a shape cut out of paper or plastic      accept the way
                                                                                would
  be more modern.             would just
that allows you to cut an exact she looks naturally. shape

Being
Beautiful
How far would you go?
We examine some of the
extremes that people have gone to in their search for perfect beauty.

Ancient 'beauty' Appearance has been important
throughout the centuries. Cleopatra and other ancient Egyptians had a practical
beauty regime, Some women shaved their heads to keep cool. Heavy black eye
make-up (kohl) was thought to be beautiful and act as protection against eye
disease. Men had clean-shaven faces as facial hair was looked down on as a sign
of laziness. Elizabethan women 'painted' their faces white with highly
dangerous lead-based make-up in imitation of their pale-skinned Queen. Ladies
also shaved their hairline to give the appearance of a high forehead like the
Queen's. Men and women have been wearing wigs and corsets for centuries.
Cut it out! To recreate the look of your favourite star,
using make-up or copying their eyebrows using stencils, seems quite tame
compared to having hair sewn into your head, silicon put into your body, or
having parts of your body reshaped or even removed to improve your appearance.
Everyone knows about (and has noticed!) the changing face of Michael Jackson. However,
the rumour that Cher had her bottom two ribs removed to make her waist thinner
seems too crazy to be true. An American woman, Cindy Jackson, has spent
hundreds of thousands of dollars having cosmetic surgery - 27 times so far! She
wanted to bring Leonardo da
Vinci's
ideas of a classically
proportioned face to life. Did it work? Her nickname is
'the human Barbie doll', so it's probable.
Is beauty in the eye of the beholder? As the number of
people having cosmetic surgery increases, fewer people now regard it as
'unnatural'. As ancient history shows, those in the public eye and in positions
of power and wealth were often perceived as the most beautiful people around.
The situation hasn't changed much. Experts say that these days we are
constantly shown images of 'beauty' and
'perfection' through the media, and told that those who
achieve beauty, achieve success and happiness. Presumably then, the longer your
life will be successful and happy, too.
Everlasting youth and life?
The Ancient Egyptians believed that by preserving the body (if you could afford
it) you were assured of immortality. These days the process, called cryogenics,
is a bit more hi-tech, but the idea is similar. Most popular in America, people
are paying huge amounts of money to have their bodies drained of blood and
frozen in liquid nitrogen when they die. This is so that they may be revived in
the future when science has found a way to bring them back to life. There are
no guarantees that this process will work, but the desire to live on is so
strong that they are prepared to spend thousands of dollars on something that
might never happen.
TRUE or FALSE?
1.  Supermodel Elle
Macpherson (known as 'the body') created the perfect body shape through
surgery.
2.  Leonardo di Caprio
was recently voted as being a man whose face is considered to be 'classically
handsome' and perfectly proportioned.
3.  Brazil produces the
most beauty queens.
4.  Some people have
plastic or cosmetic surgery for art.
Sobriety High

Discuss the problem of teenage
alcoholism and drug addiction with your students. Ask them to list the things
that may lead teenagers to abuse drugs or alcohol. Check that students
understand the word sobriety (the noun from sober) which appears in the title.

Ask your students to do activity 1, Collocation. This
will familiarise them with some of the difficult vocabulary in the text and
give them practice of some collocations. If you wish to extend the exercise,
encourage them to think of other noun phrases that can follow the verbs in the
activity, for example, to get over her ex-boyfriend, to sign a cheque, to be
high on life, to recover from the flu, to break a glass / your leg, to attend
school, etc.
 During reading I feedback
Reading for gist

Timesaver
  Reading Lessons • Photocopiable Activities

Sobriety
  High

1. Collocation2. Comprehension
Match the two halves to make tenRead the
  sentences about Sobriety High. Are they true or phrases. Paying careful
  attention to the

prepositions will help you complete this  1.
  All kids who go to Sobriety 5. Sobriety High makes activity. High are from
  äreas of students agree to a
1.     to get over          a) from
  addiction poverty and unemployment.            contract of behaviour
2.     to
  sign b) a form2. Lior didn't have a proper      while they are at school.
3.     to be high            c) a
  promisechildhood because he was         6. Sometimes kids are taken
4.     to suspend          d) from
  schoolalways on drugs.       out of school for breaking
5.
  to recover         e) with your friends3. Sara had to do some         their
  promise not to drink
6.     to break             f)
  on drugsterrible things to pay for        alcohol or use drugs.

7.     to pay g)
  drugs                              her drug addiction.         7.
  The school principal
8.     to attend             h) home 4.
  Drug- or alcohol-addicted             becomes like a mother to
9.     to do   i)
  for your habit kids who don't go to      the kids at Sobriety High.
10. to confide         j) in a
  therapist Sobriety High normally  8. Like other schools in the
11. to hang out      k) a painful
  experience go to live in a new place               USA, social events, like
12. to leave l) therapy sessions when their therapy and proms,
  are important at treatment finishes. Sobriety High.
3. Gap fill (multi-word
  verbs) The kind of kids who 1 . .. ..... ..... ..... ...... going to Sobriety
  Choose the correct multi-word verbs to fill High are the same as ordinary
  kids, except that they are the gaps in the sentences. You will have to
  recovering alcoholics or drug addicts. They may have change the tenses of
  some of the verbs. 2 .. a bad crowd at school or perhaps they  grow
  up • end up • hang out with                  With
  parents who abused drugs or
          ,
  keep up                                                                          alcohol,
  having to steal to 4 ..... .... ..... .        . their habits.

Tell the students that they are
going to read an article about a school for teenagers who have been addicted to
drugs or alcohol. Ask them to make predictions about the things that happen in
the school. As they read, they should check whether their predictions were
correct. Tell the students that the article is written using American spelling
and grammar. Discuss the following questions as a class.
 What does Sobriety High do to help teenagers recover from their
addiction?
 Why is Sobriety High more successful than other forms of therapy for
teenagers?
 What kind of atmosphere does the
school have?
Reading comprehension
Ask the
students to re-read the article and complete activity 2, Comprehension.
 Follow-up activities
Gap fill (multi-word verbs)
Get your students to do activity 3, Gap fill. All the
multiword verbs appear in the original article so your students should be
familiar with them but, before they start the exercise, check the students'
understanding of them.
A day in the life (writing)
Ask the
students to write a diary entry for a kid who goes to Sobriety High, describing
a typical day. Alternatively, they could write an account of their life before
they went to Sobriety High.

Answers
1.
  Collocation 1k
  2b 3f 4d 5a 6c 7j 81 9g 10j lie 12h
2.
  Comprehension 1
  false, 2 true, 3 true, 4 false, 5 true, 6 true, 7 true, 8 true.
3.
  Gap fill 1 end
  up, 2 hung out with, 3 grew up, 4 keep up.

TIMESAVER READING LESSONS

Sobriety High
At this US high
school, the teenagers are being taught more than just math and geography. They
are learning how to survive without drink and drugs. This is Sobriety High.

Case History 1: Lior Lior, 15, was suspended several
times from his school for being high on drugs, If you think that kids who use
drugs always come from poor, uneducated families, Lior shows that this isn't
true. His mom's a college professor. But the kids he hung out with at school
were all taking drugs. "l was doing cocaine, acid and anything else I
could get at school," Lior says. didn't really get to be a kid because I
was always getting high."
Case History 2: Sarah
Sarah grew up with an alcoholic, drug addict mom and when she was only 13 she
left home to be
1.-          around
drugs and drug dealers. She ended up being forced to work as a prostitute for
one of i? the drug dealers so that she could pay for her habit. She was 14.
Eventually one day she managed to escape and she called her mom, who came and
rescued her. Sarah
How it started
Before Sobriety High opened in 1989, kids who got
involved in drugs and alcohol received treatment for their chemical addictions.
But after their treatment finished, they were sent back to the school and
neighborhood where the abuse had originated, and many of them returned to their
old habits. Sobriety High was started in order to provide a safe, sober
environment for kids to recover in.

Who goes there Sobriety High is for kids of 14 -18 years old. They come from
all sectors of society. There are about 45 students at the school, four
teachers and a special education consultant. Apart from the fact that they are
recovering addicts, they are quite normal and enjoy all the same things which
ordinary kids like doing.
The students' promise They sign a form when they arrive
at the school promising not to take any drugs or use alcohol. If they break
this promise, they are suspended - they will be made to leave the school for a
period of time. If they keep offending, they may never be allowed to return.
How it
works Sobriety High was built in a secluded location in Minneapolis, mid-west
USA. There is a reason for this - the kids are usually running from the people
they've been drinking or doing drugs with. "Students feel protected here,
" Judi Hanson, the school principal, says. "At Sobriety High they are
safe." The students often call Judi 'Mom' and confide in her. They attend
therapy sessions where they talk about their experiences, which can often be
very emotional. They also attend regular classes in the usual school subjects
and many of them later go to university or college.
Learning to have fun without drugs Sobriety High is not
just about getting over painful experiences. It's important for the kids to
learn to have a good time just like other kids do. At the High School Prom (the
yearly dance for classes of high school students) there isn't any alcohol, and
at parties they only drink Coke and eat burgers. But they still laugh and have
fun. Perhaps the kids at Sobriety High learn one thing that is the best lesson
of all: the value of trust and friendship.

says she
feels safe now.
The Best Night of Their Lives

•
Discuss
the title of the article with your students. What do they think has been the
best night of your life? What in the future do you expect to be an important
night? If you were planning your ideal night, who would be there — your
girlfriend or boyfriend, family or friends?
Vocabulary
Ask the
students to complete activity 1, Vocabulary.
•
During reading I
feedback
Reading for gist

Ask the students to read the
text quickly and then, answer the following questions: Would you like to go to
a prom? What are the upsides and downsides of going to a prom? What do you have
to plan?
Gap fill comprehension

Timesaver Reading Lessons '
  Photocopiable Activities

The Best Night of Their Lives
  1. Vocabulary                                    2.
  Gap fill comprehension
         Match
  the words from the text                   Put the verb in brackets into its
  correct form.
with the definitions below:
1 . Students start ..... ..... ....
  ..... .. . their proms in February. (to plan)
b)   date
c)    carnation             2.
  Formal dress is usually .. at the prom. (to wear)

d)
  to range
e)
  to
  elect3. Not finding a date can be ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... for some
  students.
f)     tuxedo(to
  upset)
g)    pressure
h)
  country club4. A boy will ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... the
  corsagé to his date at her
i)
  cocktail dressparents' house before the prom. (to present)
1.  to vary    limousines
  can be costly so the price is usually
2.  a formal dinner suit
  shared by several students. (to hire)
3.  a short evening dress
  usually for wearing at parties

3.

6.
  Prom kings and queen are usually .
4.
  a person you arrange to see students. (to elect) socially usually in a
  romantic way
5.
  stress caused by feeling that you have to meet
  people's Roleplay cards expectations
6.  a
  social club in the countryside   Student A           Student B
7.  a small flower with
  crinkled You really want to go to the You don't want to go to the petals,
  usually white, red or pink prom but your friend doesn't. prom. Try to
  persuade Student
8.  to pay money to borrow Try
  to persuade him / her to A not to go either. Mention something go too. all
  the things that you dislike
9.
  to choose through voting              about the proms.

Students can re-read the text to
help them complete Activity 2, Gap fill comprehension, but warn them that the
sentences are not exactly the same. For example, an active sentence from the
article may have become passive.
•
Follow-up
activities
Roleplay
Photocopy the roleplay cards and ask the students to
act out the situation they are given. You could ask some pairs to perform their
roleplay in front of the class.
Speaking
Divide your students into small groups and ask them to
plan a party for their graduation from school. Encourage them to think about:
the place, the music, the clothes, food and drink, special shows and displays,
awards, etc. How would their party be similar to a high school prom and how
would it be different? Finally, get each group to make a poster advertising
their party and display them on your classroom

Answers
1.
  Vocabulary a)8,
  b)4, c)7, d) 1, e)9, f)2, g)5, h)6, i)3
2.
  Gap fill
  comprehension 1 planning, 2 worn, 3 upsetting, 4 present, 5 hiring, 6 elected

The Best Night of Their Lives
High School Prom
Having a big party (called a 'prom') in the junior and senior years of
high school is a great American tradition.
It's a special
night which people plan very carefully, and remember for the rest of their
lives.

The season The high school prom season usually starts in
April and continues through May. Planning starts as early as February however,
when the magazines and stores begin to show prom fashions. There is a lot of
organization to be done.
The location Proms are held in many different places.
Some schools still hold their proms in school gymnasiums but this is considered
a bit oldfashioned now. Most high schools today have their Junior (first year
of high school) and Senior (last year of high school) proms at a hotel or
country club.
Clothes
Girls spend a long time deciding what kind of dress to
wear and fashions change from year to year, and from school to school. Fashions
range from cocktail dresses to full ball gowns and can be extremely glamorous.
Sometimes girls have their dresses specially made by dressmakers. Each year
there are different styles, but as the proms are quite traditional occasions,
classic clothes are usually a good choice. Boys generally wear tuxedos.
The date One of the most important aspects
of the prom night is finding a date. It doesn't have to be a regular boyfriend
or
. 1
girlfriend, but you do have
to know who your date will be some time in advance of the prom so that you can
plan it together. Sometimes the issue of having a prom date can put a lot of
pressure on the students. No one wants to go to the prom alone and people can
get really upset about it if they don't find a date.
Prom night
Boys are
expected to buy a
'corsage' for their female dates.
This is a small flower arrangement which they wear on
their left lapel or on their wrist. Girls also wear a 'boutonniere' on their
dresses, which is usually a carnation. The presentation of the corsage to the
girl happens before the prom usually at her parents' house. Parents sometimes
allow the kids to have a small party at their home before they go to the prom
where they eat something and take photos or have photos taken by a professional
photographer. Often students hire limousines to take them to the prom. Usually
they share the cost of this with two or three other couples. Sometimes at the
prom the students elect a prom king and queen, who are the most popular couple
of the year. They are given crowns and lead the dancing when the music starts
again.

The Cool School

•
What is a
'cool school'? Discuss this question with the students. Ask them which subjects
they would study at school if they had the choice and tell them to make a list.
Vocabulary
Ask the
students to work in pairs to complete activity 1, Vocabulary crossword. They
may have to use dictionaries.
• During reading
Reading for gist
As the students read, ask them to compare their lists with the subjects
students can study at the Brit School. Are the lists similar or very different?
Reading comprehension

Discuss the school with your
students. Do they think it is a 'cool school'? Why / why not? What are the
advantages and disadvantages of going to the Brit School? Would they like to go
there? What careers does the Brit school prepare people for?

Timesaver Reading Lessons '
  Photocopiable Activities

The Cool School

1. Vocabulary         2.
  Comprehension crossword    According to the text, are the following
  statements true or false?
1 . If you are younger than 14, you are
  too young to go to the Brit School.
2.
Everyone who wants to go to the Brit
School has to have
  an audition.
3. Parents have to pay to
  send their children to the Brit School.
you are                                                                                4.
  The students don't have to study maths or English.
5.
  The students
  have shorter holidays
4. If
  you     than students at ordinary schools.
6.
  No one has to wear a uniform. you         7. Shy students at
  the school feel unhappy.

       3.
  Movie quiz                                             2. What is an extra?                                 c)
  The first roll of film used to
         How much do you know
  about       a) A person who fetches and carries        shoot a movie.
the movies?
  Test your knowledge things on the film set.    4. What do people
  traditionally say with this movie quiz.             b) Someone who writes
  extra bits       before the shooting starts? of dialogue if there isn't
  enough.
1. What does
  the producer do?             a) Lights, camera, action! c) A person who
  appears in crowd
a)   He writes the screenplay.  b) Ready,
  steady, go! scenes or in the background.
b)
  He finds people to
  invest   c) Silence on set!
money in the movie and 3. What is a screen
  test? 5. What is the 'cutting room floor'? manages the expenses. a) The first
  screening of a movie a) A room where editing takes
c)
  He works on the
  production             before a special audience.
             of a movie using
  digital                  b) Part of an audition when the           b) A film
  set.
             editing
  equipment.                              actors perform their part on film.  c)
  Hair and make-up department.

Ask them to answer the questions
in activity 2,
Comprehension
from memory, then re-read the text to check their answers.
• Follow-up activities
The movie quiz
Get your students to do activity 3, Movie quiz. Many of
the students at the Brit School are interested in a career in acting, theatre
or video production. The movie quiz is a general knowledge activity about the
film industry. After the students have completed the quiz, ask them to check
their answers with their partners.
My ideal career (writing)
Discuss
your students' ambitions. What would their ideal careers be? What could they /
their parents / their school do to help them achieve their ambitions? Ask them
to write about their ideal job and how they hope to achieve it.

Answers
1.
  Vocabulary
  crossword 1 audition, 2 talented, 3 fulfil, 4 stand out, 5 outgoing.
2.
  Comprehension 1
  true, 2 false (Students only need to audition if they are 16), 3 false, 4
  false, 5 true, 6 true, 7 false.
3.
  The movie quiz 1
  b, 2c, 3b, 4a, 5a.

The
cool School
Love the arts? Fanatical about film?
Mad about music? The Brit School just outside London in the UK is a place where
lots of kids fulfil their greatest dreams.

If you want fame

each place. Entrants at 14 have an

terms are eight weeks long, with

When people ask you what you

interview, and at 16 there is also

2-week breaks in between and

want to be in the future, they

an audition. The procedure is

only
  four weeks in the summer, so

seem pleased if you say 'a doctor'

tough because the school is

it
  involves much more attendance

or 'financial consultant'. But if you

Britain's only non fee-paying

than an ordinary school.

say J an actor' or 'a
  dancer' or 'a

entertainment school.

DJ' they often laugh and say 'no

How the kids feel about it

chance!' The Brit School takes

Different from ordinary school

Everyone who goes there is

such ambitions seriously:

The main thing that makes the

incredibly enthusiastic about it.

everything is done to make sure

Brit School like other schools is

Even though the school's

talented kids fully explore their

that it takes academic study

curriculum
  and hours make it very

passion for the creative arts.

seriously. But in other ways, the

demanding for them, they don't

atmosphere could not be more

mind. Monique, 18, said she

What you study there

different. The teachers are called

found it a bit strange at first

The Brit School centres its studies

'guides' and speak to the kids in a

because it was so unlike her old

on the performing arts. Singing,

more informal way than many are

school. "Everyone seems so

dancing, acting, music, theatre, TV

used to. There are no uniforms

creative here so I don't stand out

and film production are all on the

and no bell at the end of the

much. Everyone's an individual,

curriculum, as wetl as academic

lesson. The school also makes sure

independent and single-minded

subjects like maths and English.

that no one lives more than an

and we don't all wear the same

The staff stress the importance of

hour away from the school so

sort of clothes." Most of the

continuing academic studies.

they don't get too tired. This is

students are outgoing, and shy

Students enter the school when

important because having lessons

students say that being there

they are
  14 and 16. There is a

in radio production, theatre and

makes them more confident.

strict selection process because

video-recording
  as well as regular

Website:

there is a lot of competition for

lessons is very hard work. The

http://www.brit.croydon.sch.uk

C
Happy Birthday America

Ask the
students to name things that symbolise the USA for them, for example, the
Statue of Liberty, The White House, the Stars and Stripes, apple pie. Ask why
4th July is an important date for Americans. What do they students know about
the history of Independence Day? How is it celebrated?
Vocabulary
Elicit or teach the following words and phrases: The
Declaration of Independence (the document that American coionists wrote,
asserting their independence); a delegate (a person sent to a conference to
speak and negotiate for others); Congress (elected group of politicians that is
responsible for making the law in the USA); Constitution (a system of laws and
rules which formally states people's rights and duties); to inaugurate
(introduce someone as a new official or leader with a special ceremony); valor
(US spelling); pledge of allegiance (promise of loyalty to the USA); a streamer
(a long piece of coloured paper which unrolls when you throw it); a pow-wow (a
Native American festival); a rodeo (a festival where cowboys show off their
skills).
 During reading I feedback
Reading for gist
Ask the
students to read through the article quickly to find the answers to the
following questions.

 What made America start a war against
British rule?
 What was the first American flag like?

 How is independence Day celebrated
across the USA? Explain to them that this article is written using American
spelling and grammar. Get them to complete activity 1, Vocabulary.
Comprehension
Ask the
students to re-read the article, to complete activity 2, Comprehension. They
must explain the significance of each person, place and thing. After the
students have found all of the information, they could use it to write their
own summary of America's Independence.
 Follow-up activities
Culture
1)   Ask the students to complete activity
3, The Star-Spangled Banner, filling in the gaps in the American national
anthem. Suggest to them that the rhyme pattern may help them to place the words
in the correct places. If possible, find a version of the song that you can
play to them after the activity to see how the words fit to the music (If you
can't find one, try typing 'Independence Day' into a search engine on the
Internet. There are lots of patriotic sites that have the national anthem.)
2)   Finally, ask the students to think of
what makes them proud of their nationality and ask them to work in small groups
to make a similar song or poem.

Answers
1.
  Vocabulary 1
  color, 2 valor, 3 July Fourth, 4 cookies, 5 jello.
2.
  What do they
  mean? 1 13 is the number of colonies that America consisted of before its
  independence; 2 Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence; 3
  Philadelphia is the place where you can find the Independence Hall and the
  Liberty Bell; '789 was the year that George Washington was inaugurated; Betsy
  Ross sewed the first American flag; Red white and blue are the colours of the
American flag;
  The Empire State Building is decorated with red, white and blue lights on
  July 4th; Apple pie is a traditional American dish. 'As American as apple pie
  t is a common saying.
3.
  Star-Spangled
  Banner 1 dawn's, 2 proudly, 3 broad stripes, 4 fight,
5 glare, 6 proof, 7 still there, 8 home of the brave,

TIMESAVER READING LESSONS

Happy Birthday America
July fourth is the most
significant day in the American calendar because it is America's birthday. What
actually happened on this

day? How do people
celebrate it? Read on to find out.

The history of the Declaration of Independence July
fourth is the day the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776. It was
the time of colonies and empires. After the French-Indian Wars, the British
ended up with a huge national debt because the wars had been so expensive.
Consequently, they raised taxes in their 13 North American colonies. The people
living in the colonies resented this because it meant they were paying high
taxes to a parliament where they had no representatives. In 1774 the colonies
sent defegates to the first Continental Congress and a revolutionary war was
started against British rule. Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of
Independence and on July 4th, 1776, nine of the 13
colonies approved it. In Independence Hall, what was then called the 'Province
Bell', was rung on July 8th to celebrate the birth of the United States. It was
renamed the 'Liberty Bell' afterwards. It can be seen in the Independence Hall
in Philadelphia today.
The making of modern
America
Establishing the US Congress,
Constitution and President
took a lot longer. Peace with Britain was made in Paris in 1783, and it was
1789 before George Washington was inaugurated as the first President of the
United States.
The Star-Spangled Banner
The most important symbol of
American Independence is its flag.

The flag is known by three different names: the Star-Spangled Banner, which is
also the name of the American national anthem, the Stars and Stripes, which is
its most common name, and it's also sometimes called 'Old Glory'. The first
Star-Spangled Banner was sewn by a friend of George Washington, called Betsy
Ross, in 1776. There are a few theories about why the colors were chosen. In
1782 the Congress of the Confederation stated that white was chosen for purity
and innocence, red for valor, and blue for vigilance and justice. George
Washington is reported to have said that the stars were taken from the sky, the
red from the British flag and white to signify its separation from the home
country, There were 13 stars and 13 stripes to represent the 13 colonies, and
the stars were placed in a circle to show that no colony could be viewed above
another. Today's flag has 50 stars to represent the 50 United States.
The American pledge of allegiance A truly patriotic
American is supposed to take the oath of allegiance: "l pledge Allegiance
to the flag of the United States of America. And to the Republic for which it
stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for
all."
Celebrations Today, July fourth is celebrated with
parades, marching bands, barbecues, picnics and fireworks. Some people wear
red, white and blue clothes, and dress their homes with red, white and blue
streamers. Being a patriotic nation, it's a big party for Americans everywhere.
Some of the biggest celebrations are in the following places:
* In Virginia there are historic parades
with people dressed in 18th century costumes.
* The Empire
State Building in New York is decorated with red, white and blue lights.
In Arizona, native Americans celebrate with a pow-wow, a
rodeo and tribal dances. In Bridgeport, California, someone reads the
Declaration of Independence to the town at 10 am. Then cowboys and Indians come
into town on horseback. There is a big pieeating competition, and a barbecue,
and afterwards a game of baseball.
Food
Eating strawberries, blueberries and whipped cream is
typical, and there are hundreds of other recipes for patriotic cookies,
Starsand-Stripes jello, muffins and cakes. The most traditional dish has to be
mom's apple pie. 'As American as apple pie' is a common saying.

Britain vs America

•
Discuss British and American stereotypes with your
class. How do British and American people behave differently? Put the following
headings on the board: The people, Children, Food and drink, Weather, Houses
and Television. Ask the students to work in pairs to write one sentence about
the differences between Britain and America for each heading.
Vocabulary
Pre-teach
the following words and phrases: to look after number one; to accept your lot;
class system; clingfilm; to make up your mind; to assume; attention span. Do
not hand out the vocabulary activity until after the students have read the
article.
• During reading I
feedback
Comprehension
As they read, ask the students to underline anything
they wrote that is mentioned in the article. Tell them that what they wrote
under the heading of 'The People' may be mentioned in the paragraph with the
heading 'Themselves'.
Vocabulary

Finally, hand out activity 1,
Vocabulary and ask the students to re-arrange the letters to make words that
match the definitions. They will probably have to re-read parts of the
Word building (adjectives)

Timesaver Reading Lessons '
  Photocopiable Activities

Britain vs America

  1. Vocabulary                                                    2. Grammar: If or unless?
The following words
  are taken from the text,           Read the sentences about British and
  American but the letters have been jumbled. Put the        people. For each
  sentence, choose 'if' or 'unless'. letters in the correct order to make the
  word              1. British people would like to be rich, but they think
  that is described.they can still be happy if / unless they're not.
1.
  niquat (adjective) attractively old-2. The British think that
  their children will become fashioned overconfident if / unless they receive
  too much
2.
  rotacored (noun) someone employed to               praise.
change
  the way a room looks3. If / unless Americans say it's hot and sunny it by
  choosing colours andmeans you can cook eggs on the pavement.
furniture, etc.4. American
  houses aren't complete if / unless they 3. filsteely (noun) the way that you
  live             have a lot of gadgets.
                                     your
  life                                                            5. British
  people don't mind if / unless their houses
4.   tagged   (noun)
  an object that is are cold and their furniture clashes.
interesting for its novelty or 6.
  Americans don't let anyone appear on TV if / cleverness rather than its
  unless they are good-looking.
                                    practical
  use.                                                   7. British people
  aren't happy with their food if /
5.   pendisser
  (noun) a machine thatunless it has been boiled for twice as long as
  automatically gives out somethingnecessa ry.
6.   vargul
  (adjective) lacking in8. Americans eat large quantities of junk food if /
  sophistication and good taste unless they come from California.

Ask the class to look again at
the paragraph entitled
Themselves. The Americans could be described as
'selfcentred' or 'focussed' depending on your point of view. Likewise the
British could be described as 'considerate' or 'snobbish'. Ask the students to
work in pairs to make a list of positive and negative adjectives for each
nationality, using the other paragraphs.
Speaking
During feedback, ask the students what stereotypes
there are of their nationality. For each heading ask the students to describe
their country's traits.
• Follow-up activities
Grammar
Get your
students to complete activity 2, Grammar.
Writing
Tell your
students to imagine they are on holiday in either Britain or America. They
should write a letter home describing their experiences based on the paragraphs
in the article. As an alternative or extra exercise, you could ask the students
to write additional paragraphs comparing Britain and America under the
following headings: Music, Sport, Cinema and Geography.

Answers
l. Vocabulary 1 quaint, 2 decorator, 3 lifestyle, 4 gadget, 5 dispenser,
  6 vulgar.
2. Grammar: If or unless? 1 if, 2
  if, 3 if, 4 unless, 5 if, 6 unless, 7 unless, 8 unless.

Britain vs America
We take an
insulting (and hopefully humorous) look at the differences between Americans
and British people and probably manages to offend both of them!

Themselves
Americans aim to do three things in life: 1. 'Look after
Number One', 2. Live forever and look beautiful and young for as long as
possible, 3. Make lots of money and/or become famous.
They will do anything to
L achieve these three goals. The British are very
different. They would like to be quite rich, but are happy to accept their lot
if they're not. They would never dream of putting themselves before others
(which is why they like to queue so much and allow people to go in front of
them in races), even if their lives depended on it. They are proud of the class
system that divides them.
Food and drink The Americans love food, in large
quantities and endless varieties. Many American meals often don't even fit on
the plate. Americans like their food to be wrapped in clingfilm (or shrink-wrap
as Americans call it — see what we mean about this language difference thing!)
and ready for the microwave. This is true unless of course they are
Californians in which case they eat 'raw energy food' known to the rest of the
world as salad. The British only eat food to survive and would never dream of
enjoying it. They prefer to cook their food for twice as long as necessary just
to make sure it's done, and don't like to have too many choices on menus as
they find it impossible to make up their minds.
Children

Both British and American parents are proud of their children, but here the
similarity ends. American parents publicly admire their children and like to
share their successes with everyone, assuming that everyone else is interested.
They change their children if they don't like them the way they are, by, for
example, straightening their teeth or
boosting their
self-confidence by planning extra activities for them. British parents think
that too much praise would make their children overconfident. British parents
are happy to accept their children as nature intended, even if it means their
teeth look terrible.
Weather
In America, 'hot and sunny'
means that you should wear factor 20 suncream and you could cook eggs on the
sidewalk (or 'pavement' as the Brits would say). In Britain, 'hot and sunny'
means it isn't raining so you should expose any white skin in a public place
until it goes pink, or it starts to rain.
Television America has thousands of TV
channels because most Americans have a very short attention span. TV and film
companies won't film anyone who isn't blonde and beautiful, who is slightly
overweight or who does not have perfect teeth, unless they are appearing on a
talk show. Britain is well known for its comedy, drama and awardwinning
commercials (or 'advertisements' as those 'quaint' little Brits would say) and
the fact that it has only 5 TV channels. However, as most British people would
never want to appear on TV, they don't need more than 5 channels.
Houses Americans spend thousands of dollars employing
decorators to create a perfect home and lifestyle for themselves. They are
particularly fond of gadgets, as well as things which are remotecontrolled
(garage doors and temperature controls), extremely large (fridges) or just for
lazy people (ice cube dispensers). Britons are much less vulgar than the
Americans. They really like patterned carpets and furniture (as many different
patterns as possible in the same room) and are not concerned that they live in
freezing conditions indoors as well as outdoors.

O

Things You Learn at the Movies

Use the title of the article as the starting point for a
discussion with your students. You could ask the following questions:
Do you
think you can learn things from the movies? Can you think of a film that you
have learnt something from ? Are your favourite films educational in some way
or are they purely entertainment? What are your favourite and least favourite
types of films - why? How are the movies different from real life and how are
they the same?
Vocabulary
Put the following words and phrases on the board. (We've given
our definitions in brackets after each word.): to be bound to (to be
inevitable) a brat (a badly-behaved, annoying child) to get on someone's nerves
(to annoy someone) to speed (to drive fast, to go over the speed limit in a
car, etc.) a nerd (someone who is socially awkward and often obsessively
interested in a hobby e.g. computers) a plaster (a small piece of material that
sticks onto the skin and is used to cover a wound)
Ask the
class to define them, giving clues if necessary.
 During reading I feedback
Reading for gist
Before reading, discuss the stereotypes of Hollywood movies with the
class. What typically happens in... a romantic comedy? an action film? a horror
story?

What are the typical roles
played by animals and children in these films? What are the stereotypical good
guys and bad guys? What is the typical Hollywood heroine?

Timesaver Reading Lessons •
  Photocopiable Activities

Things You
  Learn at the Movies

1. Add the headings
Put the following
  headings in the correct places above the 12 points in the article on page 51:
  a) nationality e) weight i) life after death
b)
  weather               f) fights j) young children
c)
  love       g) saying 'ouch' k) families
d)   appearance        h)
  driving

Ask the students to make
predictions about what they will read based on this discussion. As they read,
they should underline any of their predictions that appear in the text.
Add the headings
Hand out activity 1, Add the headings and ask the students to put the
headings missing from the text in the correct

 Follow-up activities
Discussion (using the second conditional) Tell the students to imagine
that they have the chance to be in a Hollywood movie. In small groups, ask them
to discuss the following:
Which
movie would they be in?
Which role
would they play?
Which film
stars would they choose to play alongside them ?
Encourage
them to use the second conditional form.
Debate
Divide the
class into two groups to debate the following
Movies are
dangerous because they encourage people to live in a world of fantasy.
Writing a Hollywood film script
Ask the
students to write their own film script or plot based on a typical Hollywood
movie, using particular sections from the page and ideas from the earlier
discussions.

Answers lc,

Bf, 91, IOa lid, 129

2j, 3k, 4b, 5h, 6e, 7i,

TIMESAVER READING LESSONS

4

The sun never shines in science

7

Beware of apparently dead

10 Bad
  guys are always British.

fiction or horror movies, and

bad guys or girls who die half

If disaster approaches or the

bad weather and

an hour before the end of the

world is about to end, the

thunderstorms usually appear at the same
  time as danger.

film. They'll be back!

Americans will always save us.

8

No matter how many bad guys

11 People
  who wear glasses are

5

No one ever gets caught for

there are, they'll only attack

either nerds or scientists, or

speeding, causing accidents or damage to other people's cars or
  property while they are in car chases.

one at a
  time. The hero never runs out of bullets.

are secretly sexy and attractive.
12 Heroes
  have nine lives and

9

The family dog is a good judge of
  character. Dogs always spot

never need a plaster.

6

Large people are always friendly, funny and
  likeable.

the bad guy before anyone

Things You Learn at the Movies
We all enjoy
going to the movies to escape from reality. If you spend a lot of time at the
movies, you will begin to develop a strange view of the world. We look at life
according to Hollywood.

love them.
Surf It!

Ask the students for their thoughts about surfing. What
is the appeal of the sport? What is the stereotypical surfer like? Which
countries are best for surfing? What do beginners need before they start
surfing? What are the possible dangers?
Vocabulary
Ask the students to complete activity 1, Vocabulary.
The exercise contains anagrams (words with the letters jumbled up that need
rearranging).
• During reading
Reading for gist
Ask the
students to read the article and do activity 2, Add the headings, putting the
headings in the correct places. An alternative would be to ask the students to
think up headings of their own, without looking at the ones in activity 2.
Reading comprehension

Timesaver Reading Lessons '
  Photocopiable Activities

1.
Vocabulary        3. Grammar (gerund vs infinitive)
Put
  the letters in the correct order to Decide whether to use a gerund or an
  infinitive to make the word that is described. complete the following
  sentences.
1.
  dial-cabk               relaxed, easygoing         1 . It's something
  about the art of .
2.
  pjphise  people (usually with long             (catch) waves that
  makes surfers feel so laid-back.
hair) who believe in peace, love and
  chilling out 2. Being out in the elements makes you
.
  (feel) very relaxed.
3.
  tenb       not straight
4.
  jilyflesh a sea creature with a jelly            3. If you want to
  start surfing you need
                                       body
  and tentacles
  (get) a board.
5.   urn toni meet by
  accident
4. You need     (be)
  able to swim 25 metres underwater if you want to surf.
2.
Add the
  headings
Add
  the following headings to the correct          5. Remember ..... ..... ....
  ..... .. ..... (take) advice from sections of the
  article.  someone more experienced when you go surfing as a
a)
  What to do if you want to start surfing   beginner.
b)
  Dangers
c)
  Today's
  surfers(meet) stringrays, jellyfish and
sharks

d)  Finding
  the right wave   is very rare and usually surfers have more
e)
  Where they come from  from their own boards.

Tell the students that they know
somebody who is thinking about taking up surfing. Ask them to read the text
again and to choose the three most important pieces of information to give to
this person. During feedback, ask if there is any information they would not
pass on or that they disagree with.
 Follow-up activities
Grammar (gerund vs infinitive)
Tell the students that they need to complete the
sentences in activity 3, Grammar by choosing the correct form of the word in
brackets - gerund or infinitive. Tell them that the infinitives may or may not
use 'to'.
Surfing dos and don'ts
Ask the
students to work in pairs to making a list of do's and don'ts using the
information from the article. For example, Do make sure you can swim 25 metres
underwater before you start surfing. Surfing isn't a safe sport if you're not a
good swimmer.
Don't use
a big wave board if you're not an experienced surfer.
The
sentences can be serious or funny. The activity will work best if a time limit
of 5-10 minutes is set.

Answers
1.
  Vocabulary 1
  laid-back, 2 hippies, 3 bent, 4 jellyfish, 5 run into
2.
  Add the headings
  lc, 2e, 3a, 4d, 5b
3.
  Grammar 1
  catching, 2 feel, 3 to get, 4 to be, 5 to take, 6 meeting, to fear.

TIMESAVER READING LESSONS
who hang out on the
south west coast where the Atlantic waves hit the shore.
Get a board. Most
surfers start on short boards. Long boards and guns are only for experienced
surfers catching huge waves. You also have to be a very strong swimmer: being
able to swim at least 100 metres, and 25 metres underwater is required.
Beach breaks are waves which fall onto sand.
They can be big, but are best if you are a beginner. Waves vary in size during
different seasons and even at different
©

Ice Hockey - The Coolest Sport

Ask the
students what they know about ice hockey. Ask the following questions: What are
the rules of ice hockey? What do you have to wear? What kind of training is
involved? What do you think is the appeal of ice hockey?
Vocabulary
Use the lead-in as an opportunity to elicit the
following vocabulary relating to the sport: shin pads, elbow pads, shoulder
pads, helmet, hockey stick, ice skates, puck (the disk that the players try to
gain control of), ice rink.
 During reading
Reading and Speaking
As the
students read the article, they must decide whether ice hockey is the sport for
them by answering each piece of information with INFM (It's not for me) or ISLF
(It sounds like fun). Students could complete this by themselves or you could
ask them to work in small groups discussing their reasons for each decision.
After they have finished, discuss the results. Do the students think that ice
hockey is the sport for them? Why / why not?
Vocabulary

Timesaver Reading Lessons •
  Photocopiable Activities

Ice Hockey — The Coolest Sport

1.
Vocabulary   2.
  Grammar (gerund vs infinitive)
Find words or
  phrases from the article         Read the sentences about ice hockey and
  complete the that mean the same as:       sentences by choosing the gerund or
  infinitive form of the
                                                    like
  the metal                  verb in brackets.
1.
  protective clothing, suits people used to wear in
  battlesbecause (play) ice hockey is exciting
2.
  special clothing needed for a it's a fast contact sport. particular
  sport
2.
It's easy(get) injured during a game
3.
damage to the brain (often temporary) caused by a knock to       of
  ice hockey. Some injuries can cause players the head
  (suffer) from concussion.
4. area
  of ice where players skate3. If you commit fouls during the game, the referee
  will want
5.
the beginning of the game when  (send) you off. the
  players try to get control of the puck 4.                (train)
  hard and .
(eat)
  a
6. player who normally stays
  in thehealthy diet are essential if you want to be a good middle of the
  playing area player. It's also important... . . (warm up) before
  the game.
7. an
  action which is against the rules
              of the game                                                             5.
                         (wear)
  roller skates or blades allows
8. to
  cause someone to fall overyou to play street hockey if you don't have an ice
  rink
9.
to tell someone to leave the game nearby. It's best . .
  (use) empty car because of their bad behaviour parks, playgrounds or indoor
  gyms.

Ask the students to re-read the
article to complete activity 1, Vocabulary.
Grammar (gerund vs infinitive)
Ask the
students to complete activity 2, Grammar, then put the following verbs on the
board:
to foul, to trip, to charge, to drop, to fight. Ask them to make their own
sentences about the game using gerunds and infinitives. Each verb is taken from
the text, so students can refer back to the article for help.
 Follow-up activities
Speaking and Writing
As a class, ask the students which sport in their opinion is the
'coolest'. Ask them to give reasons and encourage agreement or otherwise from
the rest of the class. After the discussion, tell students to write an account
of why their choice is 'the coolest sport'. Alternatively, they could choose a
sport they detest and give reasons why it isn't the sport for them.

Answers
1.
  Vocabulary 1
  armour, 2 kit, 3 concussion, 4 rink, 5 face off, 6 centre, 7 a foul, 8 to
  trip someone, 9 to send someone off.
2.
  Grammar (gerund
  vs infinitive) 1 playing, 2 to get, to suffer, 3 to send, 4 training, eating,
  to warm up, 5 wearing, to use.

TIMESAVER READING LESSONS

Ice Hockey The Coolest
Sport

To play it you have to wear an armour
of kit to stop yourself from getting hurt, but still players often get
concussion and broken bones. So why do they do it? Maybe you already play ice
hockey - but if you don't, decide whether it appeals to you or not using the
following categories: INF-M (It's not for me) or ISLF (It sounds like fun).
Appeal

most players.

Fouls and injury
'Roughing' — which is a penalty for being
  too rough, is

The fast, aggressive nature of

very common in ice hockey. Other

the sport
  creates a high number

fouls
  include charging

of injuries.
At the last winter Olympics in
1998, women's ice hockey was

(deliberately running into) another player and tripping
  someone with a stick.

made a gold medal sport, so ice

Players suffer most from

hockey is definitely not just for

concussion, which can, in extreme

men.

cases, lead to brain damage.

Rules of play

The
  referee will send a player

At the start, the puck (the

off the ice for 2 minutes or more

small rubber disk used like a ball)

for fouls. If someone commits a

is dropped between the two

serious foul, like fighting, they

centres who try to get control of

get a 10-minute misconduct

it. This is called a 'face off'. Players
  then try to get the puck into one of the goals at the end of the

penalty.

rink. There are three 20-minute

Kit

periods to each game. One goal

The
  protective kit which players

equals one point and at the end

have to wear consists of helmets;

of the game the team with the

face masks; shin, elbow and

most points wins.

shoulder pads.

According to the NHL (National Hockey
League) it's the 'speed and physical contact' which attracts
trt1E
Training

The key skills you need to be a good player are flexibility and strength.
Players, like Eric Lindros of the Philadelphia Flyers,
started playing at age 5. He was confident on the ice aged 3.
JSLF O
You need
to prepare yourself physically before each game. This means eating high
carbohydrate food like bread and rice, and doing extensive warm-up exercises.
No ice?
The speed
of the game is reduced a lot if you play field hockey.
[40
You can play street hockey, wearing roller
skates or blades, in empty car parks, playgrounds and indoor gyms.

Road Rage

I vocabulary
Write the
following headings and words on the board:

Words associated

Words that describe how

with driving

drivers might feel

tired
Show the
picture from the article to your students and ask them to add as many words as
they can to the two lists. Ask some of the students to read their lists to the
rest of the class. Use this opportunity to pre-teach the vocabulary necessary
for understanding the article: to hold someone up, a four-wheel-drive vehicle,
tail-gating, hard shoulder, a level crossing.
 During reading
Reading for gist

Timesaver
  Reading Lessons ' Photocopiable Activities

Road Rage

  1. Comprehension                                                2.
  Grammar (modal verbs)
According to the article, are the followingRead the
  sentences and fill the gaps with mustn't sentences true or false?or don't
  have to.
1.
  Most British drivers have never been affected by road
  rage.1. Driving aggressively is very dangerous. You
2.   The British
  police strongly believe in road rage.
  lose you temper when you are driving a car.
3.   Some
  psychologists believe that road rage is caused by a combination of modern
  technology and primitive instincts.be male to get road rage; women can get it
  too.
4.
  Another possible reason for road rage is that people feel safer
  inside their cars and this feeling of power can make them aggressive. 3. In
  Britain, you 3 ..... .. .... do a special
5.
  Most often it is men, rather than women, whodriving test
  to own a powerful sports car. experience road rage.
6.   Drivers
  of big, four-wheel-drive cars are more    4. The law is very clear: drivers 4
  ..... ...... .
likely to be aggressive.behave aggressively or threaten
  others.
7.
  People who behave aggressively in general are usually
  the ones who behave aggressively5. There are a lot of mad drivers on the
  road, and                   be
  allowed to use
8.
  Cases of 'trolley rage' and 'ski rage' have been'road
  rage' as an excuse for their behaviour. reported.

Discuss road rage with your
students. Ask them for reasons why someone might become angry when they are
driving a car. Why do some people behave more aggressively when they are
driving than when they are doing other things? Ask the students to make three predictions
about what the article is going to say. They should check their predictions as
they read.
During
feedback, ask the students if road rage exists in their country. Can they tell
you of any examples? What other situations can make people aggressive? (e.g.
queuing in a supermarket or being a passenger on a plane) What should be done
to stop road rage and similar types of aggression?
Comprehension
Ask the
students to do activity 1, Comprehension from memory and then re-read the text
to check their answers.
• Follow-up activities
Grammar (modal verbs)
Ask the students to complete activity 2, Grammar. When they have finished,
go over the answers, revising the differences between mustn't and don't have to
where necessary.
Debate - What is road rage?
Organise a group debate where half the class argue that road rage is a
genuine problem and the other half argue that it is just an excuse for violent
behaviour.

Answers
1.  Comprehension 1 false, 2 false, 3
  true, 4 true, 5 true, 6 false, 7 true, 8 true.
2.  Grammar (modal verbs) 1 mustn't, 2
  don't have to, 3 don't have to, 4 mustn't, 5 mustn't.

TIMESAVER READING LESSONS
1.-    Road
Rage

'Road Rage'
describes the strange behaviour of some people who can't control their temper
when they're driving. A recent report showed that 75% of British drivers said
that they had been a victim of road rage at some time. 1.3 million drivers said
that they were forced to pull over or stop their car and
L                             250
000 people said that they had been attacked by
other drivers. Does the stress of driving make ordinary
people more aggressive? Or is 'road rage' just a new excuse for violent
behaviour?

According to the British police, there is no such thing
as road rage. Drivers who harass or attack other drivers are breaking the law.
However, British motoring organisations like the AA and the RAC do believe in
road rage. They think that there's something about driving a car that brings
out the worst in people.
L Psychologist Conrad King agrees that road rage is
real and he's developed a theory to explain it.
Animal
drivers King describes a case where a motorist almost killed himself by trying
to overtake a long queue of cars that were stuck behind a slow-moving vehicle.
The driver got angry because he thought that the other cars were deliberately
holding him up. King believes that road rage is a product of modern technology
and primitive instincts. When inside a car, drivers behave like animals. If
they feel threatened by another driver they respond aggressively, just like a
guard dog chasing an offending car for miles and miles.
Metal cage In one incident, two young
women followed a nurse for two miles. When she stopped outside her house, the
young women jumped out of their car and started screaming at the nurse and
her elderly patient. King's research shows that people
behave differently when they get behind the wheel of a car. Perhaps it's
because they feel safer inside all of that metal and glass. Cars can give
normally peaceful people a feeling of power that can make them more aggressive.

Lose control When annoyances turn to anger, powerful chemicals like adrenaline
and endorphins are released into the blood. The heart starts beating faster and
the body prepares to fight, or run away. Perhaps it's not so surprising that
1,200 road-rage related deaths were reported in Ameräca in the 1980s.
Anger can be a dangerous thing in a country where it's not unusual to own a
gun.
Road rage 'Rubbish' Critics of 'road rage' psychology
say that it's wrong to make excuses for violent behaviour. One British comedian
defined road rage as 'men being stupid in cars as well as everywhere else.'
Some experts point to evidence that supports this theory. According to
government figures, men aged between 18 and 26 are most likely to behave
aggressively or violently whilst driving. Interestingly, drivers with small
cars are more likely to be aggressive. Drivers of big cars like
four-wheel-drive vehicles are more likely to to be the victims of aggressive
behaviour like tailgating.
Mad person + car = mad driver According to behavioural
psychologist Matthew Joint, 'nine times out of ten, road rage depends on the
psychological profile if the drivers.' In other words, mad person + car = mad
driver. Perhaps that explains recent reports of 'trolley rage' in the
supermarket and 'ski rage' in the queue for ski lifts. Despite their new
concern about road rage, a European poll confirmed that British motorists still
think that they are the best drivers in Europe. Unluckily for the British, the
rest of Europe believes that Germans are the best drivers.
Could 'road rage' be connected with bad driving? The AA
teaches 75,000 people to drive every year. Here are two students' answers to
instructors' questions.
(S = student; I = instructor.)
I . 'What is the hard
shoulder on a motorway for?'
S. 'To help drivers to go round a bad bend.'
l . 'When should you
use your horn
S. 'When I'm picking up my friends.'

The Age of the Internet Nerd

I vocabulary brainstorm
Ask your class to brainstorm words that are associated with the Internet
and write them on the board. Tell the students they are going to read an
article about a British teenager who has started his own Internet companies.
How many words associated with companies can they add?
Specific vocabulary
When the
students have finished the crossword, pre-teach the following vocabulary, which
they will also need: worth, at ease (comfortable with something), venture
capitalist (a person who invests money in businesses), 'A' levels, bar mitzvah
(a ceremony which takes place on the 13th birthday of a Jewish boy and marks
his entry into adulthood), disadvantage.
 During reading
Reading for gist
Ask the students why they think young people are wellsuited to Internet
companies. As they read they should write down the reasons given in the
article.
Reading comprehension
On a
second reading, the students should complete activity 1, Comprehension.

Discussion

Timesaver Reading Lessons •
  Photocopiable Activities

The Age of the Internet Nerd

  1. Comprehension                          2.
  Vocabulary crossword
According to the text, are the Read the
  sentences and write the words in the correct places. following sentences true
  or false? All of the words are associated with Internet companies.
1.   Internet
  companies usually make their money from advertising.
2.   Ben
  Cohen has made £80 million from his websites.
3.   Ben
  wasn't interested in the Internet until he became ill when he was 13.
4.   Ben
  borrowed thousands of pounds from his dad to set up his company.
5.   Ben
  couldn't take his exams because he was too busy with his Internet businesses.
  1. A person who sets up a business (12)
6.   Ben's
  company CyberBritain.com 2. Slang name for someone, usually a boy, who works
  hard is the fastest growing on-line and loves computers (4) network in
  Europe. 3. Extra money a business makes after paying expenses (6)
7.   Most
  young people involved in 4. The name for a web address (6,4) Internet
  companies manage to 5. The person who is in charge at work (4) have a normal
  social life.  6. Internet companies are sometimes
  called companies (6)

Get your students to discuss in
small groups the advantages and disadvantages of owning an Internet company as
a teenager.
Does the
potential for making money make up for losing your social life? Is it possible
to own an Internet company and still be a normal teenager? We know that Ben
took his 'A' levels like the other kids from his school, but do you think there
are parts of teenage life he might have missed out on?
 Follow-up activities
Vocabulary revision
Ask the students to complete activity 2, Vocabulary crossword in pairs.
Each word, taken from the text is associated with the Internet / Internet
companies.
Designing a website
Ask the students what information or service they would provide if they
were going to start an Internet company. Perhaps some of them have their own
websites that they can tell you about. Divide the class into small groups. Tell
the students that each group is a new dot.com company and they must decide what
to put on their website.
This exercise could just be about sharing ideas, but an interesting
extension would be to ask the students to research the topics they choose and
write up their findings. If your school has the facilities, they could use the
material to make real websites.

Answers
1.
  Comprehension I
  true, 2 false, 3 true, 4 false, 5 false, 6 true, 7 false.
2.
  Vocabulary
  crossword 1 entrepreneur, 2 nerd, 3 profit, 4 domain name, 5 boss, 6 dot com.

TIMESAVER READING LESSONS

The Age of
the Internet Nerd
Some people are
making a fortune in cyberspace. Here are some teenage Internet entrepreneurs
who are showing the adults how to do it.

What's it all about?
Most companies have their own website these days, but some companies exist
only on the
Internet. They are
sometimes called 'dot com' companies. A lot of them don't make a profit from
selling products and some companies only provide information to the general
public. They usually make money from advertising.
How are young people connected to Internet business?
Some of the most successful Net entrepreneurs are teenagers who are still at
school. Tom Hadfield, 16, started a football results website called Soccernet
in his bedroom and it became a business worth £80 million.
Cyber-Britain.com and Jewishnet were started by Ben Cohen, who is 18.
Why are they so successful?
David Hands, of the Federation of Small Businesses,
says: 'Children are at ease with the Net and new
L technology. They can now start a small business
from their bedrooms and it doesn't cost them much money.'
What kind of teenagers start dot com companies?
Charlie Skilling of the charity Young
Enterprise, which helps teenagers learn about business, says that there are two
kinds of
L teenage entrepreneur. "There are
those who want to get
rich and those who want to be creative and provide something for the
community."

How do they get interested in the Net? Ben Cohen's story is a classic example.
When he was 13 he became very ill and couldn't leave his house. "l hadn't
been into the Internet much before that, but I started using it to keep in
touch with the world. I realised how powerful it was for reaching people at a
low cost," says Ben.
How did he start Jewishnet? He borrowed
£1 50 from his dad to buy the domain name
Jewishnet.co.uk and contacted the venture capitalist who
had given money to support Soccernet. Despite the success of his web
businesses, Ben has continued a normal life. He still goes to school and took
his 'A' levels last summer.
What is Jewishnet?
It is a successful website for the
Jewish community. You can find links here
to sites on everything from bar mitzvahs to teenage chat rooms. Ben also
started CyberBritain.com which is the fastest growing on-line network in
Europe.
Are there any disadvantages to being young and
successful? Some young people report feeling a lot of pressure to succeed after
venture capitalists have invested money in their companies. They often have no
social life. They also say they sometimes have problems with other students.
"When I go into the college laundry room, people say things like, 'Oh, I
didn't think millionaires did their own washing,"' one student
entrepreneur said. "Certain people in my company didn't like having a boss
who was 17 years old," Ben Cohen says. "And I'm having to make
decisions that I don't really want to, like how many desks we should have and
what colour the walls should be. Sometimes I think it's pressure I don't really
need."

Africa's AIDS Orphans

Discuss
AIDS with your class. Which areas of the world are most affected by AIDS? How
can it be controlled? What drugs and treatments are available? What are the
long-term effects of AIDS upon families and communities?
Vocabulary
Ask the
students to work in pairs and use their dictionaries to find the meanings of
the following words and phrases: orphan, Sub-Saharan Africa, a devastating
effect, to beg, feral, to turn (someone) away, a pandemic, a stigma, in the
long run, to foster a child.
•
During reading I
feedback
Reading comprehension Ask the students to work in small groups
and make notes about the following things:
1   parents with AIDS
2   South Africa's current population of
15-year-old boys
3   education about AIDS
4   crime
5   hospitals
6   life expectancy
7   money and pharmaceuticals
8

the potential effect of AIDS on
companies Discuss the students' findings and their reactions to the article.
Which fact or statistic did they find most shocking?

Timesaver
  Reading Lessons • Photocopiable Activities

Africa's AIDS Orphans

1. Vocabulary / Synonyms2. Grammar
  (If vs unless)
Read the facts about AIDS below. For
  eachRead the following sentences and decide whether number there are two
  phrases / words that they need if or unless.
can fit in the sentence. Choose the words or            . Africa
  receives cheaper drugs, the phrases from the list below.             hospital
  will not be able to control HIV in people. Africa's population 1 a'
  k . only 10% of the
  children aren't taught about AIDS, world's population 2 ..... ......              of
  all AIDS           they will not know how to protect themselves or deaths
  have 3 .              . there. future sexual partners from it.
                                                                                the
  lack of AIDS education in Africa,                                                                                .
  someone can look after AIDS orphans, it is not surprising that the disease is
  5 .       they will end up on the streets.
Hospitals cannot 6 .       ...
  with the amount           . a
  pregnant woman has AIDS, she is of AIDS patients at the moment, let alone
  likely to pass HIV to her unborn child.
the anticipated amount
  in five years' time.                                                                                .
  something is done to help Africa soon, Many people are angry that America is the
  problem will become even more out of hand.
. to spend over $40
  million on the        .
  politicians and the media remind war in the Balkans but only spend 1% of
  people of the problems of the African people, that amount on Africa's AIDS
  epidemic.  they are likely to be forgotten about.

            a)
  makes up b) spreading c) but                                    7.                    .
  an orphaned child is desperate, he /
           d) willing e) deal       f)
  due to                                                 she is likely to turn
  to crime.
          g)
  on the increase h) occurred                                          .
  many HIV positive Africans change
            i)
  cope j) yet k) comprises       l) prepared                         their
  sexual behaviour, they will continue to
          m)
  taken place n) because of                                                 spread
  the disease.

What are the obstacles in the
way of coping with AIDS in
Africa?
How can Africa / the developed world begin to tackle the problem?
Vocabulary / synonyms
Before the students begin activity 1, Vocabulary /
Synonyms, ask them to suggest synonyms for the following words or phrases: look
after, to cope with, because of, but. Tell that that the activity involves
finding pairs of appropriate words and phrases: for each gap in the text, they
must find two answers from the list.
•
Follow-up
activities
Grammar (If vs unless)
Ask the
students to complete the grammar exercise, and if possible add their own
sentence(s) about Africa's AIDS problem using if and unless. They can use some
of these sentences to help them with the following writing activity.
Speech / persuasive letter (writing)
Ask the
students to use the information from the article to prepare a speech or write a
letter about either of the following:
 Why Africa needs AIDS education
 Why money is needed to help Africa to fight AIDS

Answers
1.
  Vocabulary /
  Synonyms 1 a, k; 2 c, j; 3 h, m; 4 f, n; 5 b, g; 6 e, i; 7 d, l.
2.
  Grammar (If vs
  unless) 1 unless, 2 if, 3 unless, 4 if, 5 unless, 6 unless, 7 if, 8 unless.

Africa's
AIDS Orphans
For much of the
developed world, although AIDS is still a huge concern, it is being controlled
by drugs and education. For the developing world, however, and Sub-Saharan
Africa in particular, AIDS is having more devastating consequences than ever.
So far 11.5 million Africans have died from AIDS; a quarter of those were
children.

The facts
Although Africa's population only makes up 10% of the
population of the world...
70% of people who become
newly-infected with AIDS and HIV each year do so in SubSaharan Africa.
90% of children (aged under 15) in the world who have
AIDS live in Africa.
83% of all AIDS deaths have been in Africa.
In Namibia, Botswana and
Zimbabwe, 20% of people aged 15-49 have AIDS.
95% of children who are orphaned due to AIDS
live in Africa.
The problem in real terms The human suffering and
tragedy that a statistic can indicate is often
L missed. There has already been 'a generation lost
to AIDS'. Due to the virus hundreds of thousands of children have no parents.
By the year 2005, Zimbabwe will have
900,000 children under the age of
L 15 who will have been orphaned due to AIDS.
Although South Africa didn't use to have such a large AIDS problem as other
African nations, it is about to. Half of South Africa's current group of 1
5-year-old boys will probably die of AIDS. 13% of South African girls in their
late teens who are pregnant have AIDS. Most AIDS orphans have nowhere to live
and have nobody to look after them or
to educate them (even state schooling has a fee). Often
their grandparents are too old to care for them. They can't go into children's
homes because there aren't enough. This phenomenon itself brings further
problems.
Many of these children
have AIDS themselves but are not educated to know about 'safe sex'. They
continue to spread the disease or pass it to their children.
Many
children live on the streets and beg. They are malnourished and exploited.
Eventually many turn to crime to survive.
Many children never receive the proper emotional care
needed when a parent dies. Because of this, many end up becoming maladjusted
with behavioural problems, especially if they are living on the streets too and
many become almost feral.
In some African communities rape of young girls is
becoming even more common, not just because they often do not have an adult to
protect them, but because men want to be sure they are having safe sex so they
force sex on young girls who have not been sexually active before.
Due to the large number of deaths, many communities
have simply fallen apart. Much African tradition has been lost, and therefore
people cannot look after each other as well as in the past. Hospitals cannot
cope with the number of people in them at the moment but in the future the
problem is likely to mean that hospitals will turn away the majority of AIDS
patients.
The future How can Africa possibly cope with the AIDS
pandemic and the enormous social problem it is causing? Despite the high level
of poverty and war in much of the continent, AIDS is by far the biggest killer.
Although the population is increasing due to the number of births, it is one of
the few places in the world where life expectancy is going down. So what can
Africa do?
Race in Britain Today

Discuss the consequences of racism with your students and ask them to make
notes on how racism could affect the following things for ethnic minorities:
—u daily life u employment prospects education
—l
criminal justice
Vocabulary
Elicit the following words and phrases: to stab someone, custody, likely,
harsh, to set up, to recruit, to go down (for example, 'The news did not go
down well'), to get at someone.
• During reading
Reading for information
Discuss with the students how people from ethnic
minorities might be treated differently from white people even today, and tell
them as they read to make notes of any differences that are mentioned in the
text. During feedback discuss with the students whether similar problems occur
in their own country.
Reading comprehension
Students
should re-read the text to complete activity 1, Comprehension.

Discussion
Ask the students for their reactions to the text. How do they
feel about the way the Stephen Lawrence murder enquiry was conducted?
Ask the
following questions:

Timesaver
  Reading Lessons • Photocopiable Activities

Race in Britain Today
  1. Comprehension                                     2.
  Grammar (If vs unless)
        Read
  the text and answer the questions.              Complete the sentences by
  choosing either if or unless.
1.  What evidence did the
  police fail to 1 . If / unless the police had presented all of the evidence
  present at the Stephen Lawrence at the Stephen Lawrence murder trial, the
  results might murder trial? have been very different.
2.
  Why can't the five men originally 2. If / unless you are found
  innocent of a crime in Britain, accused of Stephen Lawrence's murder you
  cannot be tried again for the same thing.
face
  a retrial?3. If / unless people's negative attitudes toward ethnic
3.  How did the Macpherson
  Report sayminorities change, black and Asian people will continue that the
  police force treated people                        to be treated unfairly.

from ethnic minorities?4. If /
  unless you are a black person in Britain, you are more
4.
  What steps are the police now taking tolikely to charged with a crime,
  refused bail, and jailed. combat racism? 5. If / unless more people from
  ethnic minorities are
5.
  What reaction did the terrorist bomb     recruited into the police
  force, racial awareness is attacks on black and Asian communities      unlikely
  to improve.
provoke from the public? 6. Positive
  discrimination means that if / unless a white person and a non-white person
  are equally well-suited to a job, the non-white person will be given the job.

 Were the police guilty of racism or
incompetence in the Stephen Lawrence case?
 From the facts presented in the text, do you believe the murder suspects
were guilty?
 Should the British 'double jeopardy'
law be changed?  Is it a good idea to try to encourage ethnic minority citizens into the
police force through advertising campaigns such as the video that featured
rappers?  Is positive discrimination (where people from ethnic minorities are
treated preferentially) fair?
• Follow-up activities
Grammar
The students should complete the sentences in activity
2, Grammar, by choosing 'if' or 'unless'. When they have completed the
activity, they could add some sentences of their own.
Writing
Ask the students to write one of the following:  a speech to be delivered by the
British police force saying how you intend to deal with the problem of race
hate crimes and discrimination within the force. a a letter of support to
Stephen Lawrence's parents
(who
continue to campaign against racism)

Answers
1 . Comprehension
1
  A video of one
  of the men possibly disposing of evidence.
2
  Because the
  British 'double jeopardy' law means that someone cannot be put on trial for
  the same crime twice.
3
  The report said
  that although in most cases the police were not overtly racist, their
  behaviour and attitudes towards ethnic minorities meant that they were
  stereotyped and treated unfairly.
4
  They have
  introduced harsher penalties for officers acting in a racist manner and they
  have set up special racist crime units. 5 The public were outraged and
  disgusted.
2. Grammar (If vs unless) 1 if, 2 if, 3 unless, 4 if, 5
  unless, 6 if.

Today
   guilty,        The action of a
  brainless
If they were coward the In April both
  black and Asian suspects? communities of London were the targets of vicious
  bomb attacks by a right-wing extremist. The as the public's outrage and
  disgust at claimed that these attacks showed just how the police used to
  living in relative harmony
'their    with
  different races Britain had and              become. It is exactly this
  situation at a              that racist groups feel threatened them   by -
  Asians and blacks doing well.

THERE ARE LOTS OF PLACES IN BRITAIN WHERE RACISM DOESN'T
  EXIST.

randomly Racists know
  that they can't get the police. at them politically so they have the police
  had to use intimidation.
harsher found to be             Ethnic
  minorities in Britain have  In terms of professions, it seems training        Britain
  has made a conscious effort aLso set up        to implement 'equal
  opportunity' around the        policies. Additionally, although it will make  has
  been the subject of controversy, report.        companies and government
  obvious ways        departments have also operated awareness in        positive
  discrimination policies. (If a be to recruit        person from an ethnic
  minority and - a solution        a white person are equally welldone, as       suited
  to the job, it is given to the
(there are person from the ethnic
  minority.) minority The percentage of unemployed
blacks
  is almost double the whites. try and However, things are improving.
have Young black men are
  more likely featuring a to stay in in education after the concerns age of 16
  than their white peers go down. are. They recognise education as a with way
  of escaping poverty and be seen as becoming more powerful against
racism.

Race in Britain

Earlier this year an official inquiry into the murder of
a black teenager in England provoked a series of discussions and arguments
about the treatment of ethnic minorities by police in Britain today. A few
months later, there were two bomb attacks on ethnic communities by a rightwing
extremist. In general, Britain is proud of its ethnic mix. What's going on?
Getting
away with murder? Six years ago, Stephen Lawrence, an 18-year-old student, was
stabbed to death at a bus stop in south-east London. Five white men were
suspected of the murder but were found innocent. However, after the trial, the
victim's parents managed to prove that the police had not presented all the
evidence in court and had not acted quickly enough in arresting the suspects in
the first place. They had even ignored a video of one of the men disposing of
what could have been evidence. Was this racism or plain incompetence?

The Lawrence family
understandably felt that justice had not been done. These feelings were shared
by many when a video recording of the accused men talking in custody was shown
on British television. The men were using incredibly racist language and
discussing 'the best way to stab a black man.' Although the video still didn't
provide concrete proof of the men's guilt, it showed their undeniable racism
and disposition to violence. Despite fresh evidence and strong indications of
police malpractice, a retrial was out of the question. According to the British
'double jeopardy' law, someone cannot be put on trial for the same crime twice.
There was outrage. If the five accused men were they were walking free.
innocent, then why hadn't police found any other
The Macpherson Report The official report known Macpherson Report although
in most cases were not overtly racist, discriminatory behaviour attitudes put
minorities disadvantage by stereotyping and subjecting them to unfair treatment.'
Blacks are more likely to be charged than whites (when both have truly
committed a crime); are more likely to be jailed if found guilty; more likely
to be refused bail and more likely to be stopped on the streets by In response
to the report, have introduced much penalties for officers acting in a racist
way and increased racial-awareness to all staff. They have special racist
crimes units country which they hope racist crimes easier to

One of the most of increasing
racial the police force would more ethnic minorities that is easier said than
hardly any ever apply currently only 900 ethnic police officers in London's
Metropolitan police). To remedy this, the police commissioned a video rapper
but there are about how well this will Although it is being made good
intentions, it could stereotyping.
                                                                                ©

Animal
  Rights - A New Breed of Activism

reading
Discuss animal rights with your students. From the following list, which
things do they consider necessary, acceptable and unacceptable? Ask the
students to justify their answers and encourage debate.
animal testing for medical research
-a animal testing for
cosmetics battery farms (where hens are kept in incredibly cramped conditions) blood sports (sports in which animals
are killed,
e.g. fox hunting, bull fighting)  the fur trade  eating meat
 During reading
Vocabulary
Pre-teaching of vocabulary should not be necessary, as
students will probably be able to work out the meaning of any unfamiliar words
from the context. However, you can invite students to ask the class about words
they do not understand after the first reading. Next, test their understanding
of the new vocabulary by asking them to complete activity 1, Vocabulary.
Reading and Speaking
Discuss with the students the animal rights issues that people protest
about.
What things do people do to demonstrate against cruelty to animals? Which
kinds of protests are effective and which are ineffective? As the students read
the article, ask them to make notes under the following headings:
Types of animal activism I approve of
Types of activism disapprove of
During feedback, ask the students whether they believe violence is ever
justifiable as a part of a campaign for animal rights.
Reading comprehension
Test the
students' comprehension by asking the following questions:

Timesaver Reading Lessons
  Photocopiable Activities

Animal Rights - A New Breed of
  Activism

  1. Vocabulary                                                                                2.
  Express yourself
        Find
  words or phrases in the text that match the definitions below:                               Write
  sentences to
1.  showing
  violence or blood (adjective)    6. in danger (phrase)     express your
  feelings
2.  something on which
  huge advertising 7. to take someone away by about the following posters are
  placed (noun) force and keep them in a organisations: 3. to almost force
  something into secret location (verb)
1.  McDonald's
  someone's hands when they haven't 8. liquid used to get paint off asked for
  it (phrase) walls (noun)
2.  PETA
5.   to
  be attached to something by 9. a change (noun) electrical cables (phrase)      10.
  to create circumstances to
3.  The ALF (Animal
6.   scientific
  experimentation on animals    make something happen
Liberation
  Front)
                (noun)                                                                            (phrase)

1

What is the evidence that animal
rights groups have
raised
awareness of animal cruelty?
2    What are the effects of extremist
behaviour?
3    Why did animal rights activists attack
Katharine Brown and what did they do to her?
4    What is PETA's tactic in campaigning
against McDonald's? 5 What happened when McDonald's went to court in 1997?
(answers
provided below)
• Follow-up activities
Discussion
Discuss
the following questions with your students:
Do you
think that the anti-McDonalds posters go too far?
What is your opinion of the people who attacked Katherine Brown?
What ways of protesting
would you participate in  signing a petition?  writing a letter to your MP (Member of Parliament)?  going on a demo?  handing out leaflets?  writing on a wall?
 attacking a building that represented what you were protesting against?
Writing and Vocabulary building
Write 'McDonald's' on the board and ask three or four students to suggest
an adjective that describes the organisation. Ask them to explain their choice
of adjective. Repeat the process for PETA and the ALF and then ask the students
to write about their feelings under each heading in activity 2, Express
yourself.

Answers
Reading Comprehension
1
  Supermarkets are selling more products such as free range eggs, some bans
  have been made on drug or cosmetic testing and the British government could
  ban fox hunting; 2 It can harm the work done by non-violent protestors and
  put the animal rights movement in jeopardy; 3 Because she and her husband
  owned a farm that bred cats for medical research. They chained her to the
  fence; 4 It has run an advertising campaign, using shocking posters; 5 The
  court ruled that the organisation was 'responsible for cruelty to animals'.
  It agreed to follow PETA's outlines for changing farming methods, but
  apparently broke this promise.
1. Vocabulary 1 gory, 2 an advertising hoarding, 3 to thrust something
  into someone's hands, 4 to be wired up to something, 5 vivisection, 6 in
  jeopardy, 7 to kidnap (someone), 8 paint stripper, 9 a shift, 10 to pave the
  way.

Animal Rights
- A New Breed of Activism
Imagine you're on the way to
  McDonalds for a nice, juicy Big Mac when you see this gory animal rights
  poster screaming out at you from a huge advertising hoarding. Do you still
  want a Big Mac?

Animal rights success We have all had leaflets thrust
into our hands featuring disturbing photographs of helpless kittens wired up to
medical experiments in research laboratories or pictures of dirty, overcrowded
conditions in factory farms. Whatever our views on animal experimentation or
food production are, we cannot help but be shocked by the examples outlined in
such leaflets. Animal rights groups have achieved a considerable amount of
success for their causes over the years, raising awareness and keeping the
issues in the public eye. With food, for
L             example,
supermarkets are selling more and more organic products L    and free
range eggs to meet an increasing demand. With regards
L                                         to
vivisection, some bans on drug
or
cosmetic testing on animals have been implemented and even fox-hunting could
soon be banned L              by the British government.
Cowardly violence or moral crusaders?
In the past few years, instances of animal rights
violence have continually hit the headlines.
L                                   Animal
rights activists in Britain recently attacked 62-year-old
L farmer's wife Katharine Brown, while she was
walking her dog in L the countryside. They chained her
to a fence and demanded that she
L                                 and
her husband close their farm,
which
breeds cats for medical research. Similarly last year, an
The
power of
Do you want advertising
The PETA (People for the
fries with
that? Ethical Treatment of
Animals) advertising
                          McDonaid±sä
Crue;tv to gc,    campaign against
McDonald's
marks this shift veg              in protest tactic: using
advertising activism. No Oxford University professor
was other organisation has reached attacked as he gave a lecture. In PETA's
level of impact by attacking the 1970s, it was revealed that one of the largest
worldwide Professor Blakemore had been corporations. PETA has spent involved in
using animals for $200,000 so far on the campaign medical research. His windows
which is 'peanuts' in comparison have been smashed and his to McDonald's' $2
billion a year children threatened with spent on advertising. However, the
kidnapping. In 1993 a bomb poster campaign has already made packed with needles
was sent to a lasting impression on the world's his home and, in 1998, paint
media. Many newspapers or stripper was poured all over his advertising spaces
have refused to car. Both the Browns and print the posters because they are
Professor Blakemore insist that seen as too shocking according to the activists
were "misguided and advertising standards. But this misinformed" about
what they do negative attention has only served and said that they would be to
heighten awareness about willing to talk face-to-face with McDonald's' already
damaged them about the issues concerned. reputation. The group behind many of
these attacks is the ALF (Animal Mac attack!
Liberation Front) which has made McDonald's
has been at the no secret of its belief in the use centre of the cruelty to
animals' of violence in order to fight for controversy since 1997, when a
animal rights.                                            Court
ruled that it was
"responsible for cruelty to
A justifiable method?    animals".
PETA outlined Some people in favour of animal             suggestions for
changing the way rights would argue that violence     McDonald's treated
animals in its against animals deserves violence      farming methods and the
against the humans concerned.            restaurant company agreed to However,
most would agree that       change. It has now become such extremism is
damaging the      apparent that McDonald's has not animal cause and we are
losing                fulfilled its promises, hence the sympathy for the real
issues.     new powerful poster campaign.

E is for Ecstasy, Euphoria    and Death

reading
Speaking
As a class, discuss the dangers of the drug Ecstasy.
How dangerous do the students consider Ecstasy to be? Which situations make the
drug more dangerous? How do they feel about the title of the article? Do they
think that it is accurate or sensationalist?
 During reading
Reading for gist
Ask the
students to gist-read the article for information about the effects of Ecstasy
then ask them to tell you as much as they can remember without referring back
to the text.
Vocabulary
On a
second reading, the students should look for words or phrases to match the
definitions in activity 1, Vocabulary.
Comprehension

Ask the students to re-read the
article and do activity 2, Comprehension. Tell them to check their answers with
their partners before discussing them as a class.  Follow-up activities
Discussion
Discuss
the students' reactions to the text. Ask the following questions:
 Is it ever safe to take Ecstasy?
 Under what circumstances is the drug
most dangerous?
 What does the drug do?

Timesaver
  Reading Lessons • Photocopiable Activities

                                   E is for Ecstasy,
  Euphoria     and Death
1.
  Vocabulary  2.
  Comprehension
        Find words or phrases
  in the article that                         Read the text and answer the
  questions.
        mean the same as:                                                                 1
  . In which ways is alcohol more dangerous than
1.
  a person who goes to clubs, dances all illegal drugs like
  Ecstasy? night and often uses drugs to reach a
2.   Why
  do many young people refuse to listen to
'high'
  scientific facts about drugs?
2.
  an exclusive group of people who do not
3.
  How does Ecstasy bring about feelings of bliss mix with people
  outside their group
and
  euphoria?
3.   to take action
  through good intentions
4.   Why do Ecstasy users sometimes
  experience
(even though the result is often not short-term memory loss or
  depression? good)
5.   How does Ecstasy
  cause overheating?
4.
  to talk very enthusiastically about something 6. What happens
  in the most severe cases of overheating after taking Ecstasy?
5.   to
  change from liquid to a solid state
7.
  What has happened to most people who end
6.   a
  person who sells drugs up in hospital after a night's clubbing?

 What can be done to minimise the
number of young people who die each year from Ecstasy and other drugs?
Writing
The
article states that both users of Ecstasy and anti-drug agencies are guilty of
'stopping people understanding the true risks and assessing the real impact the
drug can have on your body'. Discuss with your class the reasons for this, then
ask them, using the information in the article, to write a balanced information
sheet aimed at teenagers about the risks involved in taking Ecstasy. This could
be set as a class or a homework activity.

Answers
1.
  Vocabulary la
  raver, 2 a clique, 3 to mean well, 4 to rave about something, 5 to coagulate,
  6 a (drug) dealer (dealer in another context just means someone who sells
  something in particular)
2.
  Comprehension
1  More teenagers in the USA die from
  alcohol than any other drug. Also 37% of deaths from car crashes for
  Americans aged 16-20 involve alcohol
2  Because anti-drug agencies often use
  scare tactics that annoy young people and make them think that the dangers
  are exaggerated.
3  It releases the body's
  mood-regulating chemical, called serotonin.
4  Because serotonin is not designed to
  be released all at once and it should be stored in nerve endings. Using
  Ecstasy can cause these nerve endings to be permanently damaged.
5  Serotonin also controls the body's
  temperature. When all of the serotonin has been released into the body, the
  body can't produce any more at the nerve endings where it is usually stored.
Overheating is made worse by taking several pills and
  dancing in a hot room.
6  The blood temperature can reach 43
  degrees. The blood coagulates at this temperature, causing the user to die.
7  They have taken a fake Ecstasy
  tablet containing cheaper and more dangerous chemicals.

TIMESAVER READING LESSONS

E is for Ecstasy, Euphoria
and Death
Originally used
by club-scene ravers, the drug Ecstasy, known as E or MDMA, has now spread from
the dance floor to schools, offices and homes. Cliques in American High Schools
use it; executives in high positions use it. But is it safe?

One of the main arguments Eusers cite to defend their
choice of drug is that it is safer than alcohol which claims thousands of lives
a year. It is certainly true that for teens in the USA, alcohol is still the
deadliest drug. For Americans aged 16-20 car crashes are the leading cause of
deaths, and 37 percent of those involve alcohol. Ecstasy, however, can still
endanger life.
Users of Ecstasy will defensively declare that taking
it is completely safe. Anti-drug agencies will say it is completely unsafe.
Both sides are guilty of stopping people understanding the true risks and
assessing the real impact the drug can have on your body. Although anti-drug
agencies mean well, their scare tactics often annoy young people who sense that
they are being presented with an exaggerated story. This means many young
people often refuse to listen to the scientific facts.
Raving about Ecstasy
The rave scene is indisputably cool - the electronic
music, the clothes, the people, the DJs. For many, the experience is made even
better by 'taking an E', the music sounds incredible, you feel a sense of
'love' for your fellow clubbers and you just want to dance all night long.
There's no denying that this is true, however, the biological way Ecstasy gives
you a high is also the way it can harm or kill you.

Side Effects E works by causing
nerve cells in your body to release serotonin. This is the body's
mood-regulating chemical. When the brain is flooded with serotonin, it can
cause you to experience feelings of bliss, empathy, and perceived insight. The
problem with this is that the body is not designed to release serotonin all at
once; it is supposed to be stored in nerve endings. In some cases E causes the
nerve endings to be permanently damaged. This phenomenon has been linked to
short-term memory loss and depression the day after taking the tablets.
OvErhEating and dEath Serotonin is also used by the body
to regulate temperature. While the brain is flooded with it, the body cannot
produce any more at the nerve endings where it is usually stored. Particularly
when several pills are taken, the body starts to overheat. Dancing in a hot
room with other people makes
the
situation worse. Regular users know they must drink water but often it is too
late. Some deaths have been caused by people drinking too much water. Some
people's blood temperature can reach 43 degrees when they use E. At this
temperature the blood coagulates and the user dies.
From E to E.R. - It's impossible to know what you're
buying E is indisputably a dangerous drug for many people. Even more dangerous
is the stuff that is sold as E but is something else. The majority of people
who end up in the E.R. (emergency room) of hospitals, have not taken E. They
have been tricked and have taken fake E, containing cheaper and more dangerous
chemicals than those in E. According to TIME magazine, as demand for E has
grown, so has the incentive to manufacture fake E, especially for one-time
raves full of teens who won't see the dealer again.

Can't We Just Be Friends?

Get
your students to look at the title of the article. Ask them: Who might say
this? When? Where? Why? How might you feel if someone said this to you?
Speaking
Get your
students to discuss relationships in pairs.
What are
the most important things in a relationship? What are the most common reasons
that young couples break up? Why do some people want to stay in relationships
even when they are unhappy?
 During reading I feedback
Reading for gist
Ask your
students to write four pieces of advice for a friend who has just split up with
their boyfriend / girlfriend. Get your students to read the article quickly. As
the students read, ask them to keep their four pieces of advice in mind. How
much of their advice is given in the article?
Vocabulary

Students should look for words
or phrases in the article that match the definitions in activity 1. Vocabulary.
Reading and Speaking

Timesaver Reading Lessons •
  Photocopiable Activities

Can't We Just Be Friends?
  1. Vocabulary                          2.
  Phrasal verbs and idioms
Find words or phrases in
  Each of the sentences beloW has a missing phrase or verb with 'get'. the
  article that mean the Fill in the correct phrases from the list. You will
  need to change the same as:  tense of some of the verbs.

1.  to pretend you are
  OK,   1. If you split up with someone you really like, it might take a while
  to when really you are. it especially is you went out with them for a long
extremely
  upset.
2.
  to feel very embarrassed              2. For some couples, the split
  is temporary and they .
about something3.
  At first you might miss your ex a lot and things will feel strange, but
3.  to stop holding onto        after
  a while you will .                                                                                .
  and perhaps even enjoy it.
somethingAfter all, nobody's perfect and there must be
  some things about your
4.
  a foolish person who has               ex which .... ..... ..... ..     .
been tricked or taken
  for4. If your boyfriend / girlfriend tells you that they have kissed someone
  granted else while they have been going out with you, you might want to
5.
  to recover from breaking                                                                                by
  doing the same thing.
             up
  with someone                            5. It's hard to tell someone it's
  over, but if you want to split up with
6.  to go out with someone
  someone, most people agree that it's best just to ..... ..... ..... .....
  ..... ....... to help you forget about instead of beating about the bush.
your ex-boyfriend / • get on your nerves  get
  to the point • get your own back girlfriend. get back together • get used to
  it • get over •

After the students have finished
reading, ask them to decide which pieces of advice in the article are good and
which pieces are bad, then write numbers next to each piece of advice in order
of importance. Get the students to discuss their reasons for deciding which
advice is good or bad.
• Follow-up activities
Personality questionnaire
As the students choose answers for the questionnaire, ask them to look at
the answers they are rejecting and think how they would explain to someone why
they would be the wrong things to do.
After the students have finished the questionnaire,
read out the scores and ask the students to add their choices up. Read the
analysis to the class.
Vocabulary
As a class, ask the students to give definitions for each of the verbs or
phrases from the box in activity 2, Phrasal verbs and idioms with get Then, ask
them to work in pairs to complete the activity.

Answers
1.  Vocabulary 1 to put on a brave face,
  2 to cringe, 3 to let go, 4 a mug, 5 to get over someone, 6 to go out with
  someone on the rebound.
2.  Phrasal verbs and idioms with get 1
  get over, 2 get back together, 3 get used to it, got on your nerves, 4 get
  your own back, 5 get to the point.
5 a=3,
  b=l, c=2 5-7 You are either very charitable and kind or you don't really mind
  splitting up with your boyfriend / girlfriend. Do you never feel sad or
  jealous? Maybe your ex just wasn't the right person tor you. 8-12 Half of you
  secretly wants to get back together with your ex. The other half knows that
  someone else will come along soon. You're feeling strange at the moment, but
  deep down you know that breaking up was the right thing to do. 13-15 Feeling
  angry can sometimes be a good thing because it helps you defend yourself
  mentally, but be careful not to go too far. Being a bitter person will stop
  you enjoying life and might put people off you.

L-
Can't We Just
Be Friends?
What's the best way to get over a
broken relationship?

1. Admit to yourself that
you're unhappy. You don't have to put on a brave face all the time. OK, when an
acquaintance asks, 'How's your boyfriend/ girlfriend?' you shouldn't break
L down in floods of tears, but it
is good to admit to yourself how you really feel.
2. Use friends. They'll understand and listen. Liz (19)
now cringes when she remembers how much she talked about her ex. 'I l was
unbearable. If we were talking about any subject, for example cats, I'd go all
pathetic and say
L 'Cameron always loved cats', then
bore everyone to death for hours. Friends were very tolerant. I also hated
anyone who said they never L liked Cameron much anyway, even though they
were just being nice."
3. Think of the advantages. L Simon (20) says,
"l wanted her back so much but after three months or so I thought, 'oh
well at least I don't need to do things on L Friday and Saturdays that I
never particularly wanted to anyway.'
L We had totally different interests I
started to think about what my next girlfriend might be like and wondering when
I'd meet her."
4. Stop thinking of your
ex as your perfect other half. If you can't stop thinking of the 'good times',
try to remember some of the bad things too. Dominic (17) remembers the things
he did for L    his ex: "When I went to parties with Janine, my
friends would be there and I'd wanted to have a laugh. She used to make me feel
L         guilty for enjoying myself and accused me of flirting with
other girls unless I just stood there with
her all night. I turned down doing loads of things with
my friends for her. When she said she wanted to go out with someone else, I
felt a total mug. Being angry with her helped me get over her."
S. Enjoy being single. When you finish with someone, you
might think the best thing to do is to find someone else immediately so your
confidence isn't damaged.
In fact, it's better to wait
a while. If you go out with someone on the rebound, it's not fair to your new
girlfriend / boyfriend. You'll spend the whole time comparing them to your ex
and possibly wishing they were your ex.

6. Staying friends. Unless they hurt you so much that you never want to see
them again, it seems a shame not to stay in touch with your ex, especially if
you had a good relationship with them. The only problem with this is if you see
your ex a lot, you might still hold hopes that you will get back together. For
this reason many people decide not to see their ex for a few weeks or more.
How do you cope with splitting up? 1. Two days
after you have split up with your boyfriend/girlfriend, you are in an art class.
The teacher says she wants you to draw a person. What do you draw?
a Your ex-boyfriend/girlfriend u b A large object...
with your exboyfriend/girlfriend trapped underneath it
0 c A famous person or someone in your family
2.
Two days after you have split up with your boyfriend/girlfriend,
a close friend of yours asks you for your ex's number because they'd like to go
out with him/her. What do you say? u a 'Over my dead body.' b 'Sure. By the
way, here's a tip, it's his/her birthday soon and he/she really likes
Baywatch.' a c 'I'd rather you didn't go out with him/her just yet. I might
feel a bit strange about it.'
3.
Your ex always hated holding hands. However, you see your
exboyfriend/girlfriend holding hands with their new boyfriend/ girlfriend. What
do you think?
a a I'm pleased that my ex
has found someone he/she really likes a b I feel jealous and angry a c I'm
going to get my own back by finding someone and kissing them in front of my ex
to prove I'm over him/her
4. Your ex still has a CD of yours. It's by a group that
you absolutely hate so you don't particularly want the CD back. What do you do?
a a Use it as an
excuse to ring him/her b Demand it back just to spite him/her o c Hope their
taste in music improves otherwise they'll always be uncool!
5. While you are in the city centre, you see someone
vandalising your ex's bike. What do you do? u a Help the vandal b Stop the
vandal. You know how much your ex loves that mountain bike
1-5 c Stop the vandal so that your ex will be indebted
to you for ever more

Coping With Stress

Ask your
students to discuss these questions in pairs:
a)   Do you ever get stressed?
b)   What types of things stress you out?
c)   Most people agree that the teenage
years can be the most anxiety-ridden and stressful years of our lives.
Do you
think this is true? Why / why not? Get feedback from your class about their
discussion and together as a class write a list of common sources of stress for
teenagers on the board.
 During reading I feedback
Reading for gist
a)  As the students read the article, ask
them to choose the three pieces of advice that they think are the best. Discuss
the students' opinions as a class.
b)  Ask them to re-read the text, making
notes under the following headings:
1

Things you should do to deal
with stress
2    Things you avoid to deal with stress
Understanding the text
Hand out
activity 1, Add the Headings and ask the students to put the headings with the
correct pieces of advice.
Vocabulary

Coping With Stress

   1. Add the headings                      2.
  Change the words
Put the following headings with Read the
  sentences about stress. Each phrasal verb is in the the correct pieces of
  advice. wrong place. Re-arrange them into the correct places.
A) Stop worrying about
  things you can't change It's tempting to (1) calm
  down when the task you need to do seems enormous, but you must (2) take
  on these negative B) Look after yourself  feelings. Tell
  yourself that you can cope.

C)
  Communicate
If
  you're panicking, take a few deep breaths and (3) bottle up.
D)
  Remember to have fun

E)
  Organise and prioritise  Don't (4) turn down too much at
  once. (5) Get over your work F) Try new things         into achievable
  units.
G) Take charge and be pro-active
Don't (6) blow over
  your feelings. Talk about your anxieties with H) Don't procrastinate the
  people who are close to you. l) Breathe!
 Everyone needs a
  break, so don't (7) give up invitations to J) Stay positive
socialise.
Write down
  possible solutions to your problems. You'll feel better if you're doing
  something positive to deal with stress, rather than waiting for the situation
  to (8) break up.

Ask the students to complete
activity 2, Change the words.
 Follow-up activities
Solving problems
Tell the students to imagine a particular situation
that could be causing them stress. Ask them to write a letter explaining how
they feel. When the students have finished their letters, collect them in and
re-distribute them to other people. Tell the students that they have to write
an answer to their new letter offering support and advice. As feedback, ask the
students to read the problems they have been given and their advice. This
exercise will run more smoothly if you set a time limit of ten minutes for
writing letters.

Answers
1.
  Add the headings
  .47, B3, C, 05, El, F8, GIO, H2, 14,
2.
  Change the words
  1 give up, 2 get over, 3 calm down, 4 take on, 5 break up, 6 bottle up, 7
  turn down, 8 blow over.

TIMESAVER READING LESSONS

Coping With Stress
Although stress can
sometimes be a good thing because it gives you the motivation to do your best,
it can have a harmful effect on you mentally and physically. If it continues
for too long, it can cause sleeplessness, anxiety, mood swings, depression and
illness. Here are 10 ways to combat excess stress.

1

By doing this you will feel in control and
  decide which things are more urgent and important. Feeling prepared can get
  rid of a lot of stress. Much stress is caused by doing things when there
  isn't enough time to do them, e.g. revising everything you have learned the
  night before a

8

Find out about new things:
two clichés that people often
  quote are 'variety is the spice of life' and 'a change is as good as a rest'.
  The good news is that they are both true. Realising that the world holds a
  lot more possibilities than the things you generally focus on can make you
  forget your problems.

2

Instead of
  worrying about doing something or avoiding it because you are scared of doing
  it (in case you fail) - just do it! The sooner you take

9

Telling people about your problems can often help. This way you will
  feel less isolated. You should also tell people such as teachers or

action, the more time you will

S

Doing something you really

boyfriends/girlfriends or

have if anything goes wrong.

enjoy means you
  get a chance to take a break and 'recharge your batteries'. People who don't
  do this feel depressed

parents how stressed you feel about certain things. Once
  they realise how you feel they might be able to help, e.g.

3

Keeping your body healthy

and then their problems seem

proving to parents that you are

reduces stress. Cut down on

bigger and they can no longer

adult and mature rather than

too much caffeine and sweet things. Make sure you get enough
  sleep and vitamin C.

6

put them
  into perspective.
If you think
  negatively, stress can take over but if you keep

shouting
  it at them during an argument often helps.

10 Find somewhere where you

4

Deep breathing works because

reminding yourself that you

have
  space to think, rest and

getting more oxygen into your

can cope and that you know

generally chill out. You should

body relaxes you. You can

what you are doing, stress

also
  use this space to write

either take up yoga or simply try breathing in deeply through your nose
  then exhaling through your mouth, and then repeat it

often goes away.

down some possible solutions to the things
  that are stressing you. Then write down possible ways you can do those
  things.

ten times.

7

You can't change them so why worry? Work
  on the things you can do something about.

Attacking the problem is better than waiting for it to just
  go away.

Food, Dangerous Food

•
Ask the
students which foods they consider to be part of a healthy diet. Do they
believe that they eat healthily? What good and bad eating habits do they have?
Have any of your students ever eaten English food? Do they consider it to be
healthy or unhealthy food?
 During reading I feedback
Reading comprehension
As the students read the article, ask them to make notes on what is said
about the following:
 Reasons for bad eating habits
 The effects of a bad diet
 Losing weight a What to drink

Get them to compare their
answers in pairs. As you get feedback from the class, encourage them to cover
their notes and give you their answers in their own words.
Vocabulary
Ask the
students to work in pairs to complete activity 1, Vocabulary.
Writing comprehension questions

Timesaver Reading Lessons '
  Photocopiable Activities

Food, Dangerous Food
  1. Vocabulary                               2.
  Writing comprehension questions
Find words or phrases
  in the             Write the comprehension questions for these answers about
  the article that mean the same as:              text.
1.
  extremely and unhealthily fat
                                         They
  arrive at school feeling tired, empty and irritable.
2.
  a drink with gas (opposite to a still drink)

                                                                                Because
  they often cause people to binge.
5.  food
  that has been genetically changed so that it is no longer         completely
  natural Chicken and fish (especially fish high in Omega 3).

6.  to
  consume a lot of food in a Because they are diuretic (they take water away
  from the body) short space of time and they contain phosphorous which reduces
  the amount of        calcium
  that people can absorb.

Ask students to complete
activity 2, Writing comprehension questions.
• Follow-up activities
Writing menus
Ask the students to write the ideal menu for one of the
following people; a footballer in training, an old lady, a teenager, a model on
a low fat diet. The students must justify their reasons for each item on their
menu. An alternative would be to write a terrible menu and explain why each
thing is so bad.
Keeping a food diary
Ask students to keep a food diary in English of
everything they eat in one week. Get them to compare their food diaries with
those of other students. Who has the healthiest

Answers
1.  Vocabulary 1 obese, 2 fizzy drink, 3
  to opt for, 4 osteoporosis, 5 genetically modified food (GMO), 6 to binge.
2.  Writing comprehension questions
  Suggested answers
1
  What effect does
  missing breakfast have on schoolchildren?
2
  Why do children
  in particular tend to eat a bad diet?
3
  What evidence is
  there that people's eating habits are worse than they used to be?
4
  Why are weight
  loss diets often a bad idea?
5
  What are the
  healthiest kinds of meat?
6
  Why are fizzy
  drinks bad for our health?

TIMESAVER READING LESSONS

Food, Dangerous Food
Britain is
the proud holder of the title for the fattest European nation, with 17 percent
of men and 20 percent of women considered to be clinically obese.

Thirsty? Tired? Reach for a can of fizzy drink and feel the buzz. We all do it,
but for many English school kids, this is breakfast! More than 50,000
8-10-year-olds miss food in the morning and arrive at school tired, empty and
irritable. And what are the prospects for healthy eating at school? Many
schools now have a 'canteen culture', where kids have a if's        choice. And
when the bell goes, they opt for pizza and chips instead of salad and fish.
When you're still young, you feel immortal, untouched by 'adult' concerns of
obesity and heart disease, The Heart Foundation has just launched a campaign to
show that bad habits formed when we're young are often the root causes of heart
problems when we're older.
Modern eating habits are seriously
destructive. Today's children are more at risk of developing osteoporosis,
heart and respiratory diseases and some forms of cancer than their parents and
grandparents. They also face the dilemmas of eating genetically-modified food
(GMOs) or organic — an increasingly popular option in Britain.
Starting points
for healthier eating:

1  If you want to lose
weight, eat normally and exercise. Diets are hard to maintain and it's all too
easy to start bingeing. Particularly, exercising in the morning will help you
keep trim, while late-night snacking is a guaranteed way to put on weight
2  If you're a
meat-eater, chicken and fish high in L
Omega 3 are far better than red meats.
They're good for your brain, too!
3  Fizzy drinks, tea and
coffee are all 'diuretics'. This means that they take water away from the body,
rather than replenishing it. Fizzy drinks also contain phosphorou, which
reduces the amount of calcium the body can absorb from food. So, if you suffer
from headaches, mood-swings, or just a general lack of energy, try replacing
all those drinks with lots of water. Other benefits are that your complexion
gets clearer and your eyes start glowing like headlamps!

                Ben on    Applying to College

Discuss with the students what they plan to do when
they leave school. What things do they have to take into consideration if they
want to go to college or get a job? What procedures do they have to go through?
What will they miss about school?
Tell the
students that they are going to read an article written by an American high
school student about applying to college in the USA. The article is written
using American grammar and spelling. Ask the students to predict what differences there
might be between applying to an American college and applying to a college in
their country. Before they read the article ask them to complete the vocabulary
exercise.
 During reading
Reading for gist
Write the
following question on the board:
What are
the difficulties of applying to college in the US? Ask the students to
gist-read and then share their findings with the class. Their ability to do
this activity should be unaffected by the missing words.
Vocabulary
Before reading the text for a second time, students
should complete activity 1, Vocabulary. Then they should read the text again
and do activity 2, Gap fill, putting the words from activity 1 in the gaps in
the text.
Reading comprehension
Ask the students to complete activity 3, Comprehension. During feedback,
you could test the students' comprehension further by asking questions, such
as:
1)
How many
universities do students usually apply to?
2)
What do some
people write about in their essays? 3) What is the rumour about the selection
process at Stanford University?
4)
What is the
disadvantage of getting into one of the top universities for students who live
in California?
5)
Do you think that
the college entry system is better in the US or in your country? What are the
similarities and differences?
• Follow-up activities
Writing a letter
Tell your
students to imagine they are thinking of applying to a university but want to
know more about their courses. Ask them to write a letter asking for
information.
Roleplay
Ask the students to work in pairs or groups of three to make a roleplay
about someone being interviewed for university. One or two people can be
interviewers and the others can be interviewees.

Answers
1.
  Vocabulary 1 i,
  2d, 3g, 4b, 5h, 6e, 7 f, 8a, 9c.
2.
  Gap fill 1 hang
  out, 2 nerve-racking, 3 pondered, 4 ultimately
5 indiscernible, 6 rumor (US spelling), 7 Ivy League, 8
  selective, 9 buddy.
3. Comprehension
1
  Because you need
  a university education to have a decent lifestyle and to find a 'useful' job;
2
  Because they are
  looked down upon as high schools with ashtrays;
3
  Finding old
  report cards, test scores and awards and writing them down. The students also
  need to write an essay;
4
  Because they
  never know what they should write about;
5
  They are the
  preferred applicants to the University of California

6
  Harvard, Yale,
  Brown and Stanford.

Timesaver
  Reading Lessons ' Photocopiable Activities

Ben on . . Applying to College

1.
Vocabulary        2.
  Gap fill
Match the following
  words or phrases         Use the words from the vocabulary exercise with
  their definitions.               to fill the gaps in the text.
1.   indiscernible       a)
  difficult to do and causes a lot of
2.
  Ivy League worry to the person doing it 3. Comprehension b)
  friend, mate (informal) 1 . Why do most senior year 5tudents apply
3.
  rumor to college?
              (US
  spelling)         c) thought about a lot
2.
Why doesn't Ben want to go to a junior
4.
  buddy    d) group of universities in the east of
                                                                                college?
5.
  to hang out         the USA that are very prestigious             does
  the process of applying to a
3.
  What
              (with                     e)
  wanting only the best
college
  involve? someone)
                                               f)
  finally                                                                   4.
  Why do people find writing the essay
6.   selective g) story pased from one
  person to  difficult?
7.   ultimately            another
  which is often inaccurate            5. What advantage do the students of
8.   nerve-racking     h)
  to generally 50cialise with a                  California have when
  applying to college?
9.   pondered            person
  or group of people                          6. Which are the most
  difficult universities
                                              i)
  impossible to see or understand                      to get into?

'NC.

TIMESAVER READING
LESSONS

-s
         Ben on   Applying to College
Californian teenager Ben Roome
(centre) profiles an aspect of his daily life.

These days a university education is necessary in
California if you plan to live decently and do something useful with yourself.
So nearly everyone leaving my high school is on his or her way to some sort of
higher education. But most of the effort put forth in school to maintain good
grades is because they don't want to go to junior college, which is widely
regarded as a high school with ashtrays. The people that attend the local
junior college, Foothill, still live with their parents and 1 .
with the same people they hung out with in high school.
I personally don't think I could stand another year of that. I like my life
here but I'm just really ready to do something different. In order to get away
and go somewhere else there is a long and belabored process of asking very
nicely if a university will accept you. On average, people apply to about six
universities for acceptance in their senior year of high school. The process is
2 ... ....
because it requires finding old report
cards and test scores and awards, and writing them down.
The Essay
After filling in four pages of plain, clean statistics
the applicant is asked to write an essay about some subject or other. The essay
is a much aspect of the application because no one can ever decide what tone or
subject the essay should have. Some people write heartfelt essays about family
tragedies and others write about taking walks in the park and why they enjoy
it. The world will never know which type of essay is more smiled upon by the
people who
a             decide your fate. Or maybe they don't
read them at all. One never knows. The admissions officers are an odd gang of
people because they are concerned with comparing people between whom, on paper
at least, the difference is nearly

Stanford University, just a few miles from my house, gets thousands of
applications from all over the country. There is a funny that they drop all the
applicants' files from the top of the staircase and send acceptance letters to
those whose files fall the farthest. Whether this is true or not, the results
come back as if the decision was as clear as fresh mountain spring water.
Students in California have the pleasant advantage of being preferred applicants
to the University of California (or UC, as it is commonly known.) It is the
best state-controlled university in the country and its Berkeley campus rivals
some 7 .... ....
schools. People in the top 30% of their class will most
likely apply to one UC campus or another because they know they can get into at
least one of them. The very top universities, on the other hand, like Harvard,
Yale, Brown and Stanford are so 8 ..... ..... ..... that a person with a 4.0
grade point average and a 1600 on the standardized aptitude test (SAT) isn't
sure to be accepted. Then if one is accepted, it means going 3,000 miles from
home, which is a long way even if you can't wait to get away from your parents
and friends. Senior year is spent writing essays and then rewriting them, then
waiting for mail from the college. A big fat envelope usually means you got in
because with your letter of acceptance comes a load of information that you
will now need. If you haven't been accepted they only need to send one piece of
paper whose message basically says, "Sorry 9 .  maybe
next lifetime."

The Mystet)' of William Shakespeare

•
reading
Ask your students to describe William Shakespeare. If
they don't know anything about him, they should write some questions about him
that they would like to know the answers to, for example, What did he look
like? What kind of man was he (intelligent, rich, kind)? What was his life
like? What kind of family did he come from? When did he live? etc. If your
students are knowledgeable on the subject, ask them to name some of his plays.
What typically happens in a Shakespearean tragedy or comedy?
•
During reading I
feedback
Reading for gist
Get your
students to read the text and either find out if their descriptions of
Shakepspeare were correct or find the answers to their questions.
Reading comprehension

They should re-read the article
to answer the questions in activity 1, Comprehension. During feedback, ask the
students whether they think the Shakespeare plays were written by someone else.
If they do, ask them who they think is likely to have written them and why.
Vocabulary
Get your students to find words or phrases in the text for the following
definitions: 1) unable to read (illiterate)
2)  the document that expresses your
wishes after your death (a will)
3)  a person who attends the king or queen
in court
(a
courtier)
4)  a weapon (a spear)

Timesaver Reading Lessons •
  Photocopiable Activities

The Mystery of William Shakespeare

1.
  Comprehension             2. Roleplay cards Read the text and
  answer the questions.
         1
  . Why do many people think it is unlikely that William                     Macbeth
  - the three witches
Shakespeare wrote the plays himself?
  Three witches stand around a cauldron making a spell. They predict
2.   What
  was Shakespeare's education like?           that Macbeth is going to be king.
3.
  If Shakespeare didn't write the plays, why didn't the (Witches
  usually speak in rhymes) person who wrote them take credit for them?

4.
  Why do people think that the Earl of Oxford could have written
  Shakespeare's plays? Hamlet - the ghost
Hamlet's father, who was killed by
5.   In
  the play Macbeth, what was Macbeth's job?               Claudius, the man who
  later marries
6.   What
  was Macbeth's wife like?               his wife, returns as a ghost and tells
7.   Who
  killed Hamlet's father?     Hamlet to take revenge.
8.   In
  Twelfth Night, why might you feel sorry for the Duke?
9.   Why
  might King Lear be described as stubborn and fickle?
10.
  Why might you feel sorry for Cordelia in King Lear?

5)

to send someone away (to banish)
 Follow-up activities
What happened in the plays?
Tell the
students to write their own versions of the Shakespeare plays and give them one
of the following types of ending: moral, romantic, crazy, unexpected, happy,
sad. This can be done in the class or set as a homework activity.
Roleplays
Ask the students to organise themselves into pairs or
groups of three and hand out the cards from activity 2, Roleplay cards. Each
pair or group must make their own scene from a Shakespearean play using the
information on the card. Groups of two do Hamlet, while groups of three must do
the scene from Macbeth.

Answers
1. Comprehension
1
  Because the few
  things we know about him indicate that he wouldn't have had the knowledge or
  experience to have written them.
2
  He appears not
  to have had any education at all.
3
  Because people
  could be killed for their views in those days, so it was safer to hide behind
  a different name.
4
  Because he spent
  many years in Italy, where 14 of Shakespeare's plays were set, his family
  symbol was a bear shaking a spear and phrases which appeared in Shakespeare's
  plays were underlined in his Bible.
5
  He was a high
  ranking (senior) soldier.
6
  She is very
  ambitious. She wants Macbeth to kill the king so that he can be king.
7
  His stepfather.
8
  He is in love
  with Lady Olivia but she doesn't love him.
9
  Because he is
  pleased by his elder daughters' lies and flattery, but punishes Cordelia for
  her honesty.
10
  Because she was
  sincere and loved her father, but he treated her

TIMESAVER READING LESSONS

The Mystery of
William Shakespeare

Shakespeare himself has been described as a genius, the greatest
dramatist and poet of all time, and yet very little is known about him.
The only real facts are these: William Shakspere (his
real name) was born on April 23rd 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon, a small town in
the centre of England.
His father and mother were illiterate farming people.
In 1582, he married a woman called Anne
Hathaway. They had three children who also grew up illiterate.
By 1 592, he was working in London as an actor. In the
following 14 years, many plays were performed under his name (Shakespeare).
In 1610/1 1 he returned to Stratford and spent the rest
of his life borrowing and lending small sums of money.
Shakespeare's writings are admired everywhere for their
intelligence, wit, beauty and humanity. So, how was it that this simple
countryman was able to write such amazing poetry? How did someone with no
apparent education, in an age when the average educated person knew 3,000 -
4,000 words, manage to produce 36 tragedies and comedies and over 127 poems,
using a combined vocabulary of more than 15,000 different words? In his will,
Shakespeare left no books or letters and made no reference to any plays. So, is
it possible that the plays were written by someone else?
Will
the real 'Will Shakey' please stand up?
1    An
Elizabethan courtier called Francis Bacon.

Bacon was famous throughout Europe for his great intellect and learning. He
also came from an important aristocratic family. So many of Shakespeare's plays
are concerned with nobility and the court, with no explanation of how he knew
about it. Bacon had this inside information and was known to have written for
the theatre. But why would Bacon disguise himself? The Elizabethan age was a
time of great political uncertainty and people were killed for their views. It
is possible that Bacon used Shakespeare as a kind of mask, behind which he
could explore and promote his ideas without fear of persecution.
2    Edward
de Vere, the Earl of Oxford. De Vere spent many years in Italy as a young man,
which would explain the use of Italy as a setting for 14 of the plays. His
family symbol was a bear 'shaking a spear'. Also, in his copy of the Bible,
numerous phrases are underlined which also appear in Shakespeare's plays.
3    Roger
Manners, the Earl of Rutland.
He was
registered at the University of Padua on 28 March 1596 so he also had an
Italian connection. On the same page that records his entry, are the names of
two Danish fellowstudents - Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
are the names of two of the courtiers in Hamlet.
Read the beginning of these plays. How should they end?
1 MACBETH
A high-ranking soldier called
Macbeth and his best friend
Banquo are returning home after fighting some rebels. When they walk through
the woods, they meet three witches who predict that Macbeth will be king one
day and that Banquo's children will be kings too. When Macbeth tells his wife
of the witches' prediction, she says he must kill the king...
2 HAMLET
Hamlet's father is the King of
Denmark. Claudius poisons the
King and marries Hamlet's mother, the Queen. Hamlet's
dead father's ghost appears to him and tells Hamlet to seek revenge...
TWELFTH NIGHT Viola is shipwrecked and believes her
twin brother has drowned. She disguises herself as a boy and becomes servant to
the love-sick Duke Orsino, carrying messages of his profound love to Lady
Olivia. Lady Olivia, however does not love the duke...
4 KING LEAR King Lear divides his kingdom between his
three daughters. He tells them that the one who loves him the most will get the
largest share. His two elder daughters say that they love him extravagantly.
Cordelia, the youngest and his favourite, simply tells him she loves him with a
daughter's love. He is furious and banishes her...

Ay Carumba!
It's The Simpsons - America's Most
Powerful Family

• Before reading
Vocabulary
1)  Ask the students to work with their
dictionaries in pairs to find the meanings of the following words:
dysfunctional, phenomenal, former, nauseating, apathy, chores, to cram (this
word has three meanings: 1 to force as much into a space as it can hold; 2 to
overeat; 3 to study a lot for an exam at the last minute.)
2)  Next, ask the students to complete
activity 1, Vocabulary. For Exercise B), remind the students that they are
looking for opposites. Before the students read the article, explain that an
Emmy is an American award given to TV shows.

During reading I
feedback
Reading for gist
Ask the class in which ways the Simpsons are America's
most powerful family, then ask them to gist-read for points to support the
argument. After feedback, ask them to read the article again and answer the
questions in activity 2, Comprehension.

Follow-up
activities
Speaking
Discuss
the characters from the cartoon with your students. What are their positive and
negative points? In which ways are they like you or your friends and family?
Discussion
Get
students to discuss the following questions about the nature of families in
pairs or small groups: What is a normal family? What is a dysfunctional family?
What typical problems do all families face? How do relationships within
families change over time? Do you think families in the USA differ from
families in your country?

Answers
1. Vocabulary
  A) 1 to get on like a house on fire, 2 to spread like wild fire, 3 to eat
  your words, 4 to sell like hot cakes, 5 to kick yourself.
B) Id, 2c, 3a, 4e, 5b.
2. Comprehension
1
  He said that
  American families should be more like the Waltons and less like the Simpsons.
2
  Everyone had to
  dress up as a Simpsons character.
3
  Because of fears
  that the catchphrase 'Underachiever and proud of it' would cause widespread
  apathy.
4
  Homer's catchphrase
  'd'oh!' It means you have made a mistake or something has gone wrong.
5
  Turning down the
  chance to be on The Simpsons.

Timesaver Reading Lessons •
  Photocopiable Activities

Ay Carumba!

1.
Vocabulary   2.
  Comprehension
A)  Find idioms in the
  text that mean the following:Read the text and answer the following
1.
  to get on very wellquestions.
2.
  to spread far and quickly
3.   to take back
  something you said because it was 1. What did ex-president George Bush Senior
  completely wrong            say about the Simpsons?
4.   to
  sell quickly through popularity              2. What was special about
  Stephen Hawking's
5.   to
  be disappointed or frustrated with yourself    millennium party?
B)   Match the words or
  phrases taken from the text              3. Why are Bart Simpson T-shirts
  banned in

        with
  their opposites.                                                                                some
  schools in the USA?
1 . to stand out
2. materialistic           4. Which
  Simpson's catchphrase has spread
3. a
  nobody             across the globe and what does it mean?
4.
under-achiever
5.
What must Al
  Gore regret?
6. to
  turn (something) down
a)
  a person of great importance and influence
b)
  to accept
c)
  caring little about money or possessions
d)
  to be the same as others
e)
  someone who
  excels

IMPRINT OF                     INC.

TIMESAVER READING LESSONS

Ay Carumba!
It's The Simpsons - America's Most
Powerful Family

When a yellow cartoon
family with funny voices appeared for thirty seconds on the Tracey Ullman Show
back in 1987, nobody realised how much our
G                         lives
would change. The show,
now entering its 12th year in the US, goes
to over 94 countries, has won 15 Emmys and was even described as the greatest
TV show of the 20th century in Time magazine.
The thing that makes The
Simpsons stand out is that we can all recognise some of the characters from our
own lives. Despite being cartoon characters, they are deeper than most of the
actors you see on a lot of US television shows. The Simpsons makes you think
about life, and features 'difficult' topics like bullying, violence on
television, families who don't exactly get on like a house on fire,
dysfunctional family members and the materialistic nature of today's society.
And it's always funny!

In the programme, the Simpsons are an average family without much power -
nobodies, in fact. However, the power and influence the programme itself has
had is phenomenal. Former President George Bush once hoped to gain popularity
by stating that American families needed to be more like The Waltons (a TV
family who all get on and are 'perfect', hard-working, and in the opinion of
any Simpsons fan downright nauseating and unreal) and less like The Simpsons.
His wife Barbara also claimed that the programme was the 'dumbest thing' she
had ever seen. They both lived to regret it as their remarks proved they had no
sense of humour and were trying to be morally superior. All those people who
ever doubted the show have had to eat their words. Perhaps the best testimony
to the programme being anything BUT dumb is that Professor Stephen Hawking
(often cited as one of the most intelligent people on the planet) held a
millennium party where everyone had to dress up as a character from The
Simpsons.
Just how influential can a
programme be? Simpsons' merchandise has sold like hot cakes. T-shirts with
Bart's catchphrase 'Underachiever and proud of it' were banned from some
schools in the USA in case they encouraged widespread apathy across the nation.
Another phrase that has spread like wild fire from the programme isn't even a
proper phrase, but more of a noise. Homer's exclamation of 'D'oh!' when
something goes wrong or makes a mistake is now uttered across the globe.
Final proof of the power of
The Simpsons comes from Mike Scully, writer/producer of the programme:
"Some time ago, we tried to get Al Gore on the show and we were turned
down.' Several years later, when he was running for president he rang the show.
As far as Mike Scully was concerned, he'd had his chance. Al Gore must be kicking
himself.

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intro:
Данное пособие позволяет закрепить и расширить словарный запас учащихся.
Тексты можно фильтровать, все рекомендации и алгоритм деятельности учителя прописан, что позволят сократить время на подготовку  к урокам. Может быть использовано как на уроках, в качестве дополнительного материала, так и на факультативных занятиях или кружках.
Отлично подходит для развития речи, т.к. тексты вынуждают на обсуждение.

title: ДОПОЛНИТЕЛЬНОЕ ЧТЕНИЕ СТАРШЕКЛАССНИКИ