whiteboard. To facilitate the task, ask students to point to the north and the south on the diagram. If possible, ask students to point to the general areas where their country/
countries are located. Allow students to read the example sentence, then ask them whether they agree with it. Students then complete the task in pairs. Remind them to use the Glossary to check any new words. Allow about fi ve minutes for the task, then ask students to compare their answers with another pair.
Check the answers as a class.
Answers
2 a, e 3 b, c, d 4 a, e
for discussion, then ask students to compare their answers with another pair. At the end, share ideas as a class. Draw students’ attention to the caption on each photo.
Answers
2 photographs a and c 3 photograph c
4 photograph a: summer; photograph b: winter;
photograph c: summer 5 photograph b 6 photographs a and b 7 photographs a and c
PRONUNCIATION FOR LISTENING
Language note
Not all the words in a sentence are equally stressed in spoken English. Functional words, like articles, prepositions, pronouns and auxiliary verbs, are usually weak and unstressed, whereas content words, like nouns, verbs and adjectives, are stressed.
Explanation box
Ask students to read the Explanation box. Check understanding of noun, verb and adjective. Elicit additional examples of nouns, adjectives and verbs from the class. Check understanding of stress /stres/ (when a word or syllable is pronounced with greater force than the other words in the same sentence).
4 2.1 Students listen to the recording and underline the stressed words in each sentence. Then they check their answers with a partner and sort out the underlined words into nouns, verbs and adjectives, changing the underlining to highlighting or a circle as necessary. Check the answers as a class. Play the audio one more time and pause after each sentence. Ask students to repeat the sentence together, following the stress pattern from the recording. If necessary, tap on your desk to emphasize the stressed syllables.
Allow students a couple of minutes to practise saying the sentences in pairs. Monitor and give feedback on sentence stress.
Answers
1 Today, I want to look at something new . 2 Take a look at photograph 1.
3 There’s a beautiful beach next to a blue sea.
4 It’s winter and there’s a mountain.
5 It’s hot and there’s sand and there are rocks.
LISTENING 1
PREPARING TO LISTEN
UNDERSTANDING KEY VOCABULARY 1 Before students begin the task, elicit
example words and their antonyms to help students understand the matching exercise, e.g. white–black, day–night, happy–sad.
Students complete the exercise individually, then check their answers with a classmate.
Encourage students to check the meanings of words they don’t know using the Glossary at the back of the book. Go over the answers as a class and elicit the pronunciation of the key vocabulary.
Answers
1 b sky /skaɪ/ sea /siː/
2 e inside /ɪnˈsaɪd/ outside /aʊtˈsaɪd/
3 a cold /kəʊld/ hot /hɒt/
4 f summer /ˈsʌmə/ winter /ˈwɪntə/
5 c beautiful /ˈbjuːtɪfəl/ ugly /ˈʌɡli/
6 d natural /ˈnổtʃərəl/ man-made /mổnˈmeɪd, ˈmổnmeɪd/
2 Students complete the exercise individually, then check their answers with a classmate. Remind them to use the Glossary to check the meaning of any new words. Allow about five minutes for the task. Display the sentences on an interactive whiteboard and complete them as a class.
Answers
1 hot 2 winter 3 man-made 4 cold 5 ugly 6 outside 7 sky 8 beautiful 9 natural 10 inside 11 sea 12 winter
USING VISUALS TO PREDICT CONTENT Skills box
Draw students’ attention to the Skills box.
Allow them a minute to read it, then check understanding of photographs /ˈfəʊtəɡrɑːfs/, pictures /ˈpɪktʃəz/, graphs /ɡrɑːfs/ and tables /ˈteɪblz/. Check understanding of predict /prɪˈdɪkt/ and ask students whether they try to predict the content before they listen, and how it can help them in listening comprehension.
3 Display the photographs on an interactive whiteboard. Students discuss the questions in pairs. Allow three or four minutes
check their answers. Check the answers as a class and check the pronunciation of the key vocabulary. With a weaker class, ask students to check their answers in the audio script on page 211.
Answers
Exercise 7: 1 it’s winter 2 Ocean; Japan 3 inside;
outside 4 Snow; London 5 hot; sand 6 United States Exercise 8: 1 winter 2 man-made 3 inside; hot
DISCUSSION
10 Display the box of phrases on an interactive whiteboard and discuss it with the class. Check which parts of speech can be used to complete the expressions and elicit examples (see answers below). Allow students a couple of minutes to make notes about their photographs. Students then work in small groups and tell each other about the photographs. Other group members listen, then guess which photograph was described. Ask students to allow the speakers to finish their description before they
guess the answers. Monitor and check the pronunciation of the key vocabulary and the grammar in the model expressions. Write down any grammar mistakes that you hear and discuss them as a class at the end.
Possible answers
It’s winter/summer/spring/autumn.
It’s a hot/cold/rainy/sunny day.
This place is (name of the place) / in (Japan).
There is the sea / a beach / a forest / the sand / etc.
There are mountains/clouds/houses/rocks.
Optional activity
Prepare your own photographs of interesting places and/or weather conditions. It could be a one- page handout with six or eight different photos on it.
Make sure you label the photographs with letters or captions. Alternatively, ask students to bring their own photographs of interesting places to class and use these for the activity. Students take turns to describe a selected photograph without telling their group members which one they have chosen. The group members have to guess which photo their classmate is describing. With a more advanced class, make sure that the photographs have a lot of similarities to make it more difficult for the other group members to guess.
Optional activity
To give more practice in sentence stress, ask students to go back to Exercise 2 and use the corrected sentences. Students work in pairs and underline the most stressed words in each sentence.
Then they take turns and practise saying the sentences by stressing the underlined words. With a more advanced class, you can ask the pairs to circle the stressed syllables in the underlined content words.
Check the answers as a class. Ask for volunteers to say the sentences aloud, correcting the sentence stress if necessary.
Answers
1 Dubai’s hot in July.
2 Canada has a lot of snow in winter.
3 Cities are man-made places.
4 We get snow when it’s cold here.
5 I don’t like cities. I think they are ugly places.
6 I like to stay at home when there is snow outside.
7 There are no clouds in the sky today.
8 ‘This is a photograph of my house.’
‘Oh! It’s lovely – it’s really beautiful.’
9 Mountains and forests are natural places.
10 It’s starting to rain and I don't want to get wet – I think we should go inside.
11 Many people like to swim in the sea.
12 They have the World Skiing Championships in winter every four years.
WHILE LISTENING
LISTENING FOR MAIN IDEAS 5 and 6 2.2 Display the three
photographs on an interactive whiteboard.
Students listen and complete the task individually. Then they check their answers with a partner. Students discuss Exercise 6 in pairs. Allow a couple of minutes for discussion, then ask the pairs to share their ideas with the class.
Answers
Exercise 5: a 3 b 2 c 1
Exercise 6: Possible answers: They are man-made places. / They are inside (outside the season is different).
LISTENING FOR DETAIL
7, 8 and 9 2.2 Students listen and complete Exercises 7 and 8 individually.
Encourage them to use the Glossary. Then they compare their answers with a partner. Play the audio one more time to allow students to
3 2.4 Students complete the task in pairs.
Then play the audio and ask students to check their answers. Ask students to underline the stressed syllable in each word. Play the audio again and ask students to check their answers. Go over the answers and drill the pronunciation as a class. Allow a couple of minutes for students to practise saying the names of the months in pairs.
Answers
1 January (4) /ˈdʒổnjʊəri/ 2 February (4) /ˈfebrʊəri/
3 March (1) /mɑːtʃ/ 4 April (2) /ˈeɪprəl/ 5 May (1) /meɪ/
6 June (1) /dʒuːn/ 7 July (2) /dʒʊˈlaɪ/ 8 August (2) /ˈɔːɡʌst/ 9 September (3) /sepˈtembə/ 10 October (3) /ɒkˈtəʊbə/ 11 November (3) /nəʊˈvembə/
12 December (3) /dɪˈsembə/
Language note
Native speakers sometimes pronounce January and February with three syllables: /ˈdʒổnjʊri/ /ˈfebrʊri/.
Optional activity
The names of the months are often misspelled by students. To improve their accuracy and to practise the names of the months, ask students to write them down on a separate piece of paper. Tell students to close their books and work with the notes. Students work in pairs. Ask them to take turns and spell out the names of the months to each other, starting with January.
When they have completed the task, ask them to check their spelling with their notes.
4 Allow students a couple of minutes to complete the phrases in the box individually.
Monitor and check the grammar. Students ask and answer the questions in pairs. Monitor and give feedback on the pronunciation of key vocabulary. Ask for volunteers to demonstrate their answers to the class.
Optional activity
With a more advanced class, ask students to work in pairs and ask each other questions about their lives.
Generate a list of possible questions as a class and write them on the whiteboard. Questions may include:
When is your birthday?, When do you go on holiday?, When do you start school?, etc. Elicit the fact that we use the preposition in when we talk about months, e.g. in January. Students take turns and ask each other questions. Monitor and make sure students use the correct preposition before the names of the months.
If necessary, give feedback on the pronunciation of the names of the months.
LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
MONTHS AND SEASONS
Lead-in
Start this section with a quick discussion about the differences between the seasons around the world.
It may be useful to prepare slides with photos of the different seasons and show spring /sprɪŋ/, summer /ˈsʌmə/, autumn /ˈɔːtəm/ and winter /ˈwɪntə/, rainy /ˈreɪni/ and dry /draɪ/ season /ˈsiːzən/.
Language note
Autumn /ˈɔːtəm/ is used in British English. Fall /fɔːl/
is more commonly used in the US and Canada. Both autumn and fall describe the season that comes between summer and winter.
1 2.3 Students work in pairs and guess the answers. Remind them to use their background knowledge to complete the task. If possible, ask students to find a map of the world online and find the location of the countries in the exercise (Thailand, Russia, Brazil, England, Japan, Australia, Nigeria).
Encourage them to use the Glossary. Students then listen and check their predictions.
Check understanding of the vocabulary for the seasons and elicit the pronunciation.
Drill the pronunciation as a class. Play the recording again and ask students to repeat the sentences as they heard them on the recording. Allow two or three minutes for students to practise saying the sentences in pairs.
Answers
a 7 b 4 c 5 d 1 e 3 f 2 g 6
2 Students complete the task individually, then check their answers with a partner. Check the answers as a class and elicit the fact that the names of the months always start with a capital letter.
Answers
2 February 3 March 5 May 10 October 12 December
Optional activity
Prepare a worksheet with questions like: Do you like to stay inside when it’s sunny?, Do you like to go outside when it’s windy?, Do you like to stay at home and read when it’s rainy?, Are you afraid when it’s stormy?, etc. Students mingle with the rest of their classmates and ask them the questions. Allow about five minutes for the task, then ask students to share their findings with the class.