Young people in North America10

Transcription

1 Young people in North America10 some facts and figures about the USA and Canada. how to understand an American accent. how to summarize a text in which people describe how they live. to write a short text about your life in comparison to that of other young people. how to talk about pictures of foreign cities and compare them to your own. about the Present Perfect tense. 1 Here are some statements about the United States of America. Some are true and some are false. Circle the letters in front of the statements which you think are true. When you read them from top to bottom, you ll find a state in the USA. R The capital of the USA is New York. C There are about 305 million people in the USA. E 50% of Americans are black. O The most popular sport is baseball. N There are only rich people in the USA. L 15-year-old students go to high school. F The USA is the largest country in the world. O When it is 12 noon in New York, it is 9 a.m. in Los Angeles. G There are 48 states. R Hawaii is one of the states. A America was discovered by Europeans in S Anyone can go and live in the USA. D Americans pay in dollars. O It takes five hours to fly from New York to Los Angeles. The word is: 145

2 10These words appear in the following text. What do you think the text is about? 2 Louise brother sister high school mechanic downtown beach Mexico store boy border San Diego friends summer 3 Read this message from an American girl. Louise Barnett 12 September at 15:41 Reply Hi, My name is Louise Barnett. I m 15 years old and I live in San Diego, in Southern California, near the Mexican border. My father is a mechanic and my mother is a secretary. I have an older sister, who is 19. Her name is Adriana and she works in a store. My younger brother is 14, and we both go to Putney High School. We live in a house with a small garden. I often go swimming with my friends. The beach is quite close. We also go shopping together too. Sometimes my father and I drive into Mexico. We live only half an hour from the border. In Mexico everything is very cheap, but I never go there alone or with my friends, because it can be quite dangerous. It is very hot in San Diego in summer, and even in winter it s not cold. I like living here, but I would also like to hear from young people in other countries. Please write. Yours, Louise. Cover up the text, and write down in your notebook what you can remember about Louise. Then check with the text. What is the weather like there? Father s and mother s jobs? Brothers and sisters. What do they do? How old are they? What does she do in her free time? Why does she never go to Mexico alone? 146

3 4 10 The largest state of the USA is Texas, and people are fond of tall tales because everything is bigger. Read this tale and put the paragraphs in the correct order. The first said, You know, I need a new Cadillac. I don t think I ve bought one this year. The second Texan said, Guess I ll join you and so they crossed the street. The second Texan stopped him at once and said, Now wait, Jim, the Cadillac is on me. You paid for lunch. They walked in, and the first Texan pointed to a gleaming new, red Cadillac and said, I ll take two of those, and reached for his wallet. Two Texans coming out of a restaurant saw a Cadillac car showroom on the other side of the street. 5 In the heart of Texas First, read the statements below and make sure you understand them. Ask your teacher for unknown words. Then listen to the interview with Cody Everett and his girlfriend Charlotte Myers, who live in Austin, Texas, and mark the statements true or false. 24 T F 1 More than half of the adults are under 45 years of age. 2 According to Cody s father, there are three kinds of people. 3 Cody s relatives have been surprised at the friendliness of people. 4 Currently, Austin has approximately 900,000 inhabitants per cent of Austinites are white, and 10 per cent Hispanic. 6 Cody and Charlotte have never been to a Mexican restaurant. 6 Listen to the interview again and find the word that is missing in each of these sentences. 1 Cody has been living in Austin for. 2 Austin is city. 3 People in Austin are also friendly to. 4 The city has grown enormously in. 5 Mexican food and barbecue have always been the favourites. 6 There are a lot of good restaurants. 147

4 10For the most part, Texas is brown, flat and dusty, and there are many floods, droughts and tornadoes. Joe Beamer, 7 a fifteen-year-old boy, tells us how a tornado hit his hometown Sweetwater. Read his story and make a short summary. It was a really hot day, so Mum, my brother Dave and I went swimming to Lake Sweetwater. We were playing Frisbee at the lakeside, when we saw a funnel in the distance. We stopped playing to take a look. The funnel was really mesmerizing. I couldn t take my eyes off it. Everyone was just staring at it! Mum told us to get into our van, as she wanted to get home before the twister hit. We were about five miles from home when the sheriff stopped us at the Walgreens supermarket. We then realized the twister was right behind us! The sheriff told Mum to park the van and to go into the supermarket. Mum was worrying about Vicky, my nine-year-old sister, who was at home by herself. So Mum parked close to a pay phone, and called home to see if Vicky was okay. Of course, Vicky knew nothing about the twister that was about to hit us. She told Mum that all the power had gone off, and Mum told her to find a safe place in the house. Dave shouted, Mum, let s get into the store! So we ran into Walgreens. The people in the store were very calm. They told us to get to the back of the store as fast as we could. Outside, the police stopped traffic and told everybody to get into the supermarket. When two girls came into the store, I could see through the door how close the tornado was. The sky was dark, and when the tornado hit, the ceiling rocked. Mum was praying to God, not for ourselves, but for Vicky who was all by herself. Suddenly I heard the shattering of glass. I was wearing sandals, so when the glass shattered, I had tiny pieces of glass in my legs and feet. Ouch, that hurt! When the tornado was gone, we went outside to look at our new van, which we had only had five weeks. Dave saw that there was a pipe on the van. We looked at it closer, and we saw that it was a tap from a bathroom. We had no idea where it came from. By the way, our van is a Ford Wind Star. Dad says after the tornado it is now a Ford Wind Scar! My family and I are all fine, but a little jumpy when we hear strange noises. We re okay, but I think we will take time to get over it all. 148

5 10 8 Here are some pictures that were taken in New York City. Study them and describe what you can see. lnternet project: Work in groups of four. Gather information about New York City from the Internet and present it in class. 149

6 10Below, you can read some facts about living in the USA from the 2000 census. Guess which figures from the box 9 go with which sentences Between 1990 and 2000, the number of households headed by a woman increased by million. million people living in the USA speak Spanish better than English. A little more than percent of the US population live in poverty, this is, on less than dollars a day. Only percent of Americans remain in the same house/flat for longer than years. In California, New Mexico, Arizona and Texas, almost percent of the population has Spanish roots. 10 Look at the sentences in 9 again and find the words meaning the same as nearly a small amount not so much in the period of time from of a higher standard a larger number to become larger exactly like 11 Here are some statements about Canada. Some are true and some are false. Circle the letters in front of the statements which you think are true. When you read them from top to bottom, you ll find a large city in Canada. R Canada is the fourth largest country in the world. M Canada is larger than the USA. A The capital of Canada is Montreal. O Toronto is the largest city in Canada. N The head of state is still the British queen. I The national emblem of Canada is the grizzly bear. T Canadians pay in Canadian dollars. E English is the only official language in Canada. R Canada s original inhabitants were Indians and Inuits. I Most large cities are in the west of Canada. E Canada s population is about 3 times the population of Austria. A Canada is one of the biggest producers of wood. S The north of Canada is called Alaska. L Canada has borders with only one state. The word is: 150

7 10 12 Read the letter from Canada s north, and fill in the missing words from the box. goes down difficult returns people darkness friends language trap live sleep Jim Hopkins 04 December at 11:24 Reply Hello, My name is Jim Hopkins. I in the north-west of Canada. My hometown is Inuvik on the Mackenzie river. It s a small town of only 3,000 but we have radio programs in English, an Inuit language, and an Indian language. Two thirds of the people who live here are Inuits and Indians. I have a lot of Inuit and Indian. My best friend is Indian and I often go out with him and his father to foxes. I can even speak a little of their. Of course, we don t use sledges drawn by dogs so much any more. Most people here have snowmobiles. In early December, when the sun, it does not rise for a month. Imagine, it s completely dark for one month. We are all happy when the sun very short. The sun rises at about noon and early in January. But the days are still returns at around 6 p.m. Some people say they would like to all the time during those dark months. I don t really mind the darkness during the winter. I think when you have good friends, it s not to enjoy yourself. What are your winters like? Yours, Jim 151