Pre-reading ideas

WARM UPS

Yahoo also to offer 1GB mailbox

Task 10

The war to provide bigger, free email storage is on. Yahoo has just announced it will quadruple its inbox space to one gigabyte from April. This is the third time Yahoo has greatly increased its storage space in the past nine months; its inbox was four megabytes last summer, and then increased to 100MB, and later to 250MB. Its big rival, Google’s Gmail, started the storage war last April by enticing the world with a massive 1GB, which was 250 times bigger than Yahoo’s paltry 4MB. Microsoft’s Hotmail will now need to increase its storage, currently at 250MB, to keep up with the 1GB providers. Gmail has so far been in a testing period, but is predicted to raise the ante by offering a beefed-up 2GB to stay ahead of the pack when it starts offering email accounts through its website. Joining Gmail is still by invitation only. Yahoo has denied its 1GB upgrade is in response to Gmail, saying it was to keep in line with what Yahoo users wanted from the company. A Yahoo spokesperson said people are now storing things like photos in their inboxes, which requires a larger capacity.

1. CHAT: Talk in pairs or groups about email / storage space / Yahoo! / Hotmail / Gmail / online advertisements / spam / virus protection / phishing…

2. EMAIL BRAINSTORM: Spend one minute writing down all of the different words you associate with the word ‘email’. Share your words with your partner / group and talk about them.

3. MY EMAIL HISTORY: Talk to your partner / group about your history with email – the first time you used it, the experiences you have had, the number of accounts you set up etc. Use the prompts below in your conversations:

• email space
• my daily email routine
• attachments
• special email abbreviations and emoticons
• hates
• important part of my life
• free
• mobile phone
• spam
• photos

4. OPINIONS: Talk about these with your partner.

• Google’s Gmail is best – it’s revolutionary.
• Email should always be free.
• Email should never include advertising.
• People who send spam should go to prison for 25 years.
• Email is dangerous.
• Voice mail will one day replace email.
• Our written language skills are going down because of email.
• I cannot live without email.
• Spam would disappear if no one clicked on the links in the spam mail.
• We need 10GB of free space, not 1GB.

1. WORD SEARCH: Look in your dictionary / computer to find collocates, other meanings, information, synonyms … of the words ‘storage’ and ‘space’.

2. TRUE / FALSE: Look at the headline and guess whether these sentences are true or false:

a. The war to provide bigger, free email storage is off. T / F

b. Yahoo will triple its inbox space from 250MB to 1 gigabyte. T / F

c. This time last year, Yahoo’s inbox was just 4MB. T / F

d. Hotmail started the storage war. T / F

e. Google’s Gmail was 250 times larger than Yahoo’s mailbox. T / F

f. Anyone can join Gmail through Google’s homepage. T / F

g. Yahoo will start a 1GB service because of Gmail. T / F

h. A Yahoo spokesperson said customers need more space for photos. T / F

3. SYNONYM MATCH: Match the following synonyms from the article:

(a)	war	raise the stakes
(b)	storage	luring
(c)	quadruple	battle
(d)	rival	memory
(e)	enticing	measly
(f)	paltry	up to date
(g)	up the ante	competitor
(h)	beefed-up	increase four-fold
(i)	ahead of the pack	strengthened
(j)	in line	in the lead

4. PHRASE MATCH: Match the following phrases from the article (sometimes more than one combination is possible):

(a)	The war	with a massive 1GB
(b)	it will quadruple	is on
(c)	the third time	with the 1GB providers
(d)	big	only
(e)	enticing the world	its inbox space
(f)	Hotmail will now need	in line with
(g)	to keep up	of the pack
(h)	stay ahead	rival
(i)	by invitation	in the past nine months
(j)	to keep	to increase its storage

Дата добавления: 2015-01-03