Tapescript. 4SS read an article about the calendar of special occasions in the USA and Great Britain and choosetheir answers from the names of the occasions on the

LISTENING

Answers

READING

4 SS read an article about the calendar of special occasions in the USA and Great Britain and choosetheir answers from the names of the occasions on the right.

TIP STRIP for SS:

· Read the text quickly for general understanding.

· You only need to understand the main point of each paragraph. Don’t worry if you don’t understand every word.

· Read each paragraph; decide what the main point is, then find the best answer.

· Be careful – the answers won’t use the same words as the text.

When you have read all the paragraphs, go back and check your answers. Give SS five minutes to go through the text and match the questions and answers of the article. Tell them to quests any new words from the context. Check answers. Feedback round the class.

1 F 2 A 3 C 4 E 5 B 6 A 7 C 8 D 9 E 10 F 11 A 12 F 13 A 14 C 15 D 16 F 17 D 18 A 19 A 20 C 21 B 22 F

5 SS work in groups and discuss the questions.

Suggested answers:

- What are the main holidays in the USA, Great Britain and in your country? What are their origins?

- There are many in the USA for example: New Year Day, Christmas, Thanksgiving Day, Independence Day, Colombus Day, Citizenship Day, Memorial Day, Kwanzaa etc. As for Kwanzaa, it is a new festival in the American calendar. It is a time of reaffirming African-American people, their ancestors and culture. Dr Maulana Karenga founded it in 1966. Today more than 15 million people celebrate Kwanzaa. The word means “first fruits of the harvest ” in the African language. It is celebrated from December 26^th to January 1^st and is based on Nguzo Saba.

6 SS put these days in the correct order and give the dates. Then SS discuss in groups these traditional and religious holidays in the United Kingdom and USA they’ve read about.

1 Independence Day - 4 July;

2 Memorial Day – 30 May;

3 Citizenship Day – 17 September;

4 Thanksgiving Day - the 4^th Thursday in November;

5 Colombus Day – the 2d Monday in October;

6 Kwanzaa – from 26 December to 1^st January.

7 SS hear five people talking about events, which they attended and SS match the statements with the speakers.

Answers 1 A 2 B 3 C 4 D 5 E

They put the play on once every ten years. And the whole village takes part; I mean literally hundreds of villagers play in it. It’s meant to be an expression of gratitude to God from the village, in return for what they believe is his protection. And you can really appreciate the religious sincerity of the players. Even more than if they were professional actors actually.

It’s a spectacular horse race, well known with tourists, which is run twice a year round the central square. It goes back a long, long way, the first record of it, run as it is today, is from over 700 years ago, in 1238. And even then, apparently, a form of the race had been staged 100 years before that! Whatever, it’s very old.

It’s held at the height of summer – the middle of August – in Zakopane, a mountain resort in the south of the country. It lasts for a week, and during that time you can hear all sorts of folk music from mountain groups from all over Europe. It must have been a beautiful, peaceful village once, but it’s grown and grown and it’s full of tourists now.

Well, it starts with a masked procession, when the figure of King Carnival is paraded through the streets. There’s loud music everywhere. Then for two weeks you get dressed up and eat a lot and have a lot of fun throwing things at people in the street. On the final day, Mardi Gras, there’s a huge fireworks display in one of the main squares, down near the sea.

It’s unforgettable: the crowds, the atmosphere, the incredible floats. And the religious emotion, it’s so intense it just sweeps you up with it! But those hooded figures – oh, there’s something so sinister about them! I always think they’re gonna pick me up of the crowd and take me off somewhere, to be horribly punished!

8 SS work in pairs and discuss the festivals from the previous activity.

Suggested dialogues:

- If you could go to only one of these festivals, which one would you choose and whom would you go with?

- I would go to the King Carnival with my friends, as it is very funny and unusual.

9 SS work individually: they listen to the tape and decide if each statement is true or false.

Tapescript Buddhists believe that nothing is permanent, and on the 9^th of March they celebrate this belief. Long before the festival begins, monks make their preparations by mixing brightly-coloured dyes into huge quantities of iced butter. It takes them several months to carve the frozen butter into highly decorated statues, some of them as much as 8 metres high. On the day of the festival itself, the sculptures – supported by wooden frames – are carried through the streets and greeted with cheers from the excited crowds. Afterwards, the figures are thrown into a river by the monks who made them to demonstrate the idea that not even the most beautiful things last forever.

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