11 This grammar point may be confusing because the verb agrees with the noun that follows the verb. Provide some prompts for students to make sentences starting with There was / were, eg
Teacher: a central water system
Students: There wasn’t a central water system.
Students can look at the article on SB page 46 if they need help completing the table. Check answers as a class.
Answers
affirmative negative
There was a problem There wasn’t a school in Athens. near their farm.
There were only silver There weren’t gold
medals. medals in 1896.
Refer to the grammar reference on SB page 136, now or at the end of the lesson and go through it with them.
12 Note that this activity has two stages. The first (exercise 12) is grammar practice and the second (exercise 13) is general knowledge.
Give feedback on the grammar only at this stage. Tell students to work on their own to complete the gaps in the quiz, then compare answers in pairs. Write the answers on the board. Ask students to explain the reasons for their choices.
Answers
1 was 2 were 3 were; were 4 weren’t; were;
were 5 were 6 were 7 weren’t
13 2.5 Tell students to work in pairs or groups to answer the quiz questions. Ask groups to give feedback to the class and see how many students got the same answers. Play the audio and check the answers. Find out which ones they got right and ask if there were any that everyone get wrong.
Answers
1 1896 2 9 3 22 4 4 (croquet, golf, sailing and tennis) 5 London 6 26, 11,000, 204 7 Because of World War I and World War II.
Transcript
1 The year of the first Modern Olympic Games was 1896.
2 There were nine events at the first Modern Games. They were: athletics, cycling, fencing, gymnastics, shooting, swimming, tennis, weightlifting and wrestling.
3 There were 22 women in the Games for the first time in 1900 (but there were 975 men!).
92 Unit 5
4 There weren’t many sports for women in that year. Only four were possible. What were they? Croquet, golf, sailing and tennis.
5 The 2012 Summer Olympics were in London.
6 In that year, there were 26 sports, and almost 11,000 athletes from 204 countries.
7 There weren’t Games in 1914, 1940 or 1944. Why not? Because of World War I and World War II.
Extra idea: Ask students to research more information about the first Olympic Games online. They could then present their
information to the rest of the class in the form of a quiz.
Lesson 3 All sports for all people. pp48–49
Aims
The focus of this lesson is to review questions using the past simple of be, and to find out more about the Olympics and Paralympics.
You first!
Ask students about the last Olympic Games. Ask:
Were they exciting? Why? / Why not? Are the Olympic Games a good idea? Why? / Why not?
Explain the meaning of Paralympic Games.
Listening 1
1 Ask students to look at the flag and the photo and discuss the questions. Encourage guessing and write the ideas on the board. Don’t check the answers yet as they will come up in the audio.
2 2.6 Explain that you are going to play the first part of an interview about the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Tell students to listen carefully as there is a lot of information in the interview. Play the audio for students to check their answers to exercise 1. Play it again if any answers were unclear or incorrect.
Answers
1 He was French.
2 He was born in Paris on 1st January, 1863.
3 ‘All sports for all people’
4 They represent the five continents.
5 Because you can find at least one of the colours in the flag of every country of the world.
Transcript
INTERVIEWER So who exactly was Pierre de Coubertin?
AUTHOR Pierre de Coubertin was French.
He was born in Paris on January the first, 1863.
INTERVIEWER New Year’s Day!
AUTHOR Yes, New Year’s Day. A new beginning.
INTERVIEWER And he liked sport.
AUTHOR Oh yes, he loved sport. Sport was special because it was for everyone: young people, old people, rich and poor, black and white. His motto was ‘All sports for all people’.
INTERVIEWER And why were the Olympic Games important?
AUTHOR They were very important to help peace and understanding in the world.
INTERVIEWER Because people were together.
AUTHOR Exactly. The Games united people from all over the world.
INTERVIEWER And tell us about the Olympic flag – those five rings.
AUTHOR The five rings mean the five continents together and athletes from all over the world.
INTERVIEWER And the colours? Blue, yellow, black, green and red (on white).
AUTHOR Well, you can find at least one of these colours (including white) in the flag of every country in the world.
INTERVIEWER Really? I must have a look!
3 Go over the words in the box and practise saying them. For the longer words, ask how many syllables there are and which one is stressed. Ask students to work individually to tick the words they think they heard. Play the audio again for students to check their answers.
Check comprehension of the words by asking, eg Which word means a sportsperson / the opposite of war / the opposite of rich?
Answers
sport, special, young, old, rich, poor, peace, understanding, world
Unit 5 93 Tip: Play the audio and ask students to raise
their hands when they hear the word.
Background note: 776BC was the year of the first ancient Olympic Games – in Athens.
(The events were: athletics (running), long jump (jumping), discus throwing, wrestling, boxing and equestrian: horse and chariot racing.)
Years of some of the Games:
1900 = Paris, 1936 = Berlin, 1992 = Barcelona, 1994 = Lillehammer (Norway), 2000 = Sydney, 2004 = Athens, 2008 = Beijing, 2012 = London.
1994 was the first year that the Winter Olympics, in Lillehammer in Norway, were in a different year from the Summer ones.
(Subsequent winter Olympics: 1998 Japan, 2002 USA, 2006 Italy, 2010 Canada, 2014 Russia.)
Speaking
4 Allow time for students to discuss the
questions in pairs or in small groups. Compare answers as a class.
Answers
1 blue, yellow, black, green, red, white 2 suggested answers: pink, brown, purple,
orange, grey
3–5 Students’ own answers
Listening 2
5 Ask students to look at the photos on SB page 49. They may be able to predict how the idea of the Paralympic Games first got started.
Allow time for quiet reading and discussion in pairs. Check understanding of any difficult words, eg neurosurgeon, specialist, spinal injuries, disabilities. Check the answers as a class.
Note that the questions in exercise 6 will also help to check comprehension of this biography.
The photo at the bottom of SB page 49 shows the first Paralympic Games (the 1st International Wheelchair Games). The only sport was archery and this photo is from that year – 1948.
Answers
1 He was a German neurosurgeon.
2 He was the father of the Paralympic Games. The photos show athletes in the Paralympic Games.
6 Tell students to read the biography of Ludwig Guttmann again, then work in pairs to write the questions. Ask pairs to write the questions on the board and check each others’ work.
MA For a greater challenge, ask students to write additional questions with was or were (eg What was Stoke Mandeville Hospital?).
For more support, write the answers to the questions in a random order on the board.
Suggested answers
1 When was Dr Guttmann born?
2 Where was he from?
3 What did he do? / What was his job? / What kind of doctor was he?
4 What was his dream?
7 2.7 Go through the table and check that students know what type of information to write in each column. Draw the table on the board. You may want to do the first one as an example with the class. Explain that you are going to play the second part of the interview.
Play the audio and invite students to call out their answers so that you can write them in the table. Play the audio again for students to check their answers. Ask: How were the Games different in Stoke Mandeville and London?
Answers
year event competitors countries
1948 1st 16 1
International
Wheelchair
Games,
Stoke Mandeville
1960 Paralympic 400 23
Games, Rome
2012 Paralympic 4,302 164 Games, London
94 Unit 5 Transcript
INTERVIEWER So how did the Paralympic Games start?
AUTHOR Well, the first Paralympic Games weren’t called the Paralympic Games, they were called the First International Wheelchair Games, and they were at Stoke Mandeville Hospital near London.
INTERVIEWER And when was that?
AUTHOR That was in the summer of1948.
INTERVIEWER Uh-huh.
AUTHOR They were very small that year.
There were only 16 competitors.
They were all in wheelchairs and they were all from the UK.
INTERVIEWER So just one country? The Games weren’t international.
AUTHOR That’s right. But over the years, they were open to other countries and to people with other disabilities too – not just wheelchair users. At the
Paralympic Games in 1960 in Rome, there were 400 athletes, and they were from 23 different countries.
INTERVIEWER Wow! That was only 12 years after 1948.
AUTHOR That’s nothing. In London in 2012, there were 4,302 athletes.
INTERVIEWER Four thousand three hundred and two athletes! And how many different countries?
AUTHOR A hundred and sixty-four!
Listening 3
8 2.8 Ask students to look at the photo and say who they think the woman is and what she is doing. Explain the word Baroness (it’s a title the Queen of England can give a woman when she has done something for the country).
Ask students to read the information. Explain any new words, eg nickname, spina bifida (/spaɪnəˈbɪfɪdə/), charity. Play the audio as students write their answers. They can compare in pairs. Play the audio again, pausing to check each answer.
Note: Spina bifida literally means ‘split or open spine’. It is a birth defect in which the bones of the spine (vertebrae) do not form properly around the spinal cord. The causes of spina bifida are not really known.
Answers
Surname Grey-Thompson
Real name Carys Davina Place of birth Cardiff, Wales Year of birth 1969
Nickname Tanni
Disability Spina bifida Number of medals gold: 11
silver: 4
bronze: 1
Year of first medal 1988
London Marathon Won six times between 1992 and 2002
Year of last
Paralympics 2004
Current occupation Works for charity; helps other disabled people Transcript
Tanni Grey-Thompson has a wheelchair because she was born with spina bifida. Her real name is Carys Davina, and she was born in Cardiff in Wales in 1969. She was a very small baby, and her sister called her tiny or ‘tanni’ – the name she still uses today.
Tanni has 16 Paralympic medals for wheelchair-racing events. Eleven medals were gold, four were silver. The first one was bronze. She won it in Seoul in 1988 for the 400m wheelchair race. She also won the London Marathon six times between 1992 and 2002. Her last Paralympics were in Athens in 2004.
Nowadays, Tanni does a lot of work for charity and for disabled people.
Tip: When playing the audio, it is best for students to work out the answers by themselves, even if it means playing a segment several times.
Writing and speaking
9 Read the biography outline together. Then ask students to write the missing words. Note that students can take the information from the table in exercise 8. Remind them that won is the past simple of win – this was mentioned in the reading in lesson 2. They will learn more about the past simple in the next unit.
Unit 5 95 Answers
1 was born 2 1969 3 is ‘Tanni’ 4 baby 5 16 6 wheelchair 7 won 8 six times 9 1992 10 2002
MA For a greater challenge, ask students to close their books. Then read out the text, saying Mmm for the missing words. Students can write their answers in their notebooks. For more support write the missing words on the board in a random order.
10 Start by brainstorming the names of three or four famous athletes and ask what students know about them. Students can then continue in groups. Point out that these notes will help them with exercise 11.
11 You may want to assign this activity as research and writing for homework. Students can use exercise 9 as a model to help them make notes
De-stress!
Ask students how they come to class, eg Do you walk, jog or cycle? If not, why not? Also ask: What exercise do you like doing? What exercise do you do regularly? Could you do more? Finally, ask them: Why is exercise important? It’s important, not only for weight control, but also for stress management: exercise uses up the harmful
‘chemicals’ produced by stress and increases our endorphins – which make us feel good! And while stress reduces our energy, exercise increases it.