LESSON OVERVIEW
• Topic: Third rock from the sun EXAM FILE p3
Learning objective: Students will be better able to understand collocations.
Extra resources
C1 Advanced Exam Trainer
• Reading and Use of English — Part 1 Multiple-choice cloze p8 Exs 3—4
Digital resources
• Presentation tool p30
• Video: About C1 Advanced: Reading and Use of English Part 1
BEFORE YOU START
Read through the Exam reference on page 3 of the Exam file before starting the lesson. This will give you information about the specific exam part as well as which particular strategies and skills are important.
DYSLEXIA FOCUS
Dyslexic students may struggle with the collocations, so you could read these with them before asking them to do Ex 4. They may also need extra time to read the text before completing Ex 5. For the exam task (Ex 6), if necessary, go through the options with them before asking them to complete it.
Dyslexic students may also benefit from the structured checklist in the Exam file (p3) to check their
preparedness for this exam part.
Warmer
Ask students if they are interested in space or if they have ever seen anything interesting in the night sky.
Give examples to help them, e.g. comets, shooting stars, satellites. Then, give them two minutes to write down the names of as many planets in the Solar System as they can. Check their ideas. (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. There is also Planet Nine, which is thought to exist but has not yet been observed. Note that Pluto is now designated as a dwarf planet.)
Extra practice
EXAM TRAINER pp38—40
For further practice of the skills presented in this lesson for Reading and Use of English Part 7, we recommend students complete the Practice task and How did you do? section on page 38 and Strategies and skills Exs 1—3 on pages 39—40 of the C1 Advanced Exam Trainer.
There is a full practice exam included on pages 106—129 of the C1 Advanced Exam Trainer. There are also two full practice exams included in the Digital resources. For further practice, you can use Reading and Use of English Part 7.
Alternative
Organise the class into four groups, and give each group one of the paragraphs. Students complete their paragraph individually and then check their answers with others in their group. When the whole class has finished, one student from each group reads their completed text to the class.
Fast finishers
Ask students to think of another natural mystery that they know of, or if they have access to their phones they could quickly look one up. Ask them to write a short description of the mystery using two collocations from Ex 4.
EXAM BOOST
The exercise on page 2 in section B of the Exam boost provides more practice of collocations. This could be done in class or for homework.
Answers
1 held 2 similar 3 crafted 4 attached 5 available 6 offended 7 controversial
EXAM FILE Section B p2 VOCABULARY: Collocations
1 Elicit the answer to the question from the whole class, and ask why the Earth is sometimes called this. Ask if students can think of any other descriptions or nicknames for Earth (e.g., The Blue Planet, The Blue Marble, The Blue Sphere, Mother Earth, Terra, etc.).
Answers The Earth
2 Put students into small groups to discuss the question for a few minutes. Encourage them to make notes on their ideas because they will need to refer to them in the next exercise. Monitor, helping out where appropriate, but do not confirm any answers at this stage.
Answers
Students’ own answers
3 3.4 Explain the task and tell students to make notes on the different things mentioned as they listen. Play the recording once, and allow students to compare their ideas with a partner. Then play the recording a second time for them to check their answers. Ask students to compare what they heard on the recording with their own notes from Ex 2 and ask whether they found any of them surprising. Take quick feedback from the class.
Answers
Being able to see people.
4 3.5 Tell students that we often use collocations with adverbs and adjectives when talking about surprising or impressive things. Write The view was _____ spectacular on the board and elicit words that could complete the gap (e.g. completely, totally, really, absolutely). Ask students to match the words to form collocations, then put them into pairs to compare their answers. Play the recording again for students to check their answers.
Answers
1 d 2 a 3 f 4 g 5 h 6 c 7 e 8 b 5 Write natural mysteries on the board and elicit some examples of these from the class (e.g. crop circles, ball lightning). Put students into pairs and explain the task. Allow five minutes, then take feedback from the whole class.
Answers
1 unsolved mystery
2 deepened, understanding
3 remarkably beautiful/highly symmetrical 4 highly symmetrical/remarkably beautiful 5 distinctive feature
6 exceptionally difficult 7 complicate matters 8 accumulated knowledge
Speaking or writing
7 Organise the class into small groups to discuss the questions. Go round and monitor their discussions and bring up any interesting ideas you hear with the class afterwards. Point out that these are the kind of questions that appear in Speaking Part 4 and that it is useful to think about how to answer questions like these.
Answers
Students’ own answers
8 You can add this question to the group discussion in Ex 7. Alternatively, put students into pairs and ask them to discuss some ideas they could include in a short paragraph.
Then ask students to write their paragraph for homework.
Answers
Students’ own answers
Cooler
Put students into pairs. Ask them to tell each other about something they’ve done that was exceptionally difficult, a place they think is remarkably beautiful, or something they would like to accumulate more knowledge of. Take brief feedback from each pair.
Extra practice
EXAM TRAINER p8
For further practice of the skills presented in this lesson for Reading and Use of English Part 1, we recommend students complete Strategies and skills Exs 3—4 on page 8 of the C1 Advanced Exam Trainer.
There is a full practice exam included on pages 106—129 of the C1 Advanced Exam Trainer. There are also two full practice exams included in the Digital resources. For further practice, you can use Reading and Use of English Part 1.
6 Please note that in the C1 Advanced exam, this task would contain a wider variety of language. In this case, it focuses on the language from the lesson. Explain to students that they are going to do a Reading and Use of English Part 1 task. Refer students to the tips in the Exam reference notes on page 3 of the Exam file if necessary.
Focus students on the title and ask them if they know anything about the topic. Tell them to read the text quickly, ignoring the gaps, and ask what the Richat structure is and how it got its name the ‘eye’ of the Sahara (it’s a rock structure in the Sahara desert, visible from space, that looks like an eye). Go through the example with the class and discuss why B is the correct answer and why the other options are incorrect. Remind them to always look at the words that come both before and after each gap to decide if the missing word is part of a collocation or a vocabulary item.
Allow ten minutes for students to complete the rest of the task individually, without looking back at Ex 4. They check their answers in pairs. Take feedback as a class, and discuss any items they got wrong or found difficult.
Answers
0 B (A ‘feature’ of the landscape is a part of the land, especially a part that you can see. A, C and D do not collocate with ‘landscape’.)
1 B (‘highly’ collocates with ‘symmetrical’; the other words do not.)
2 A (‘remarkably’ collocates with ‘beautiful’; the other words do not.)
3 D (‘abandoned’ means to stop having a particular idea, belief or attitude. It is the only word which fits the context.
You can ‘abandon’ a hypothesis, but not ‘deny’, ‘release’
or ‘discharge’ one.)
4 C (‘deepen’ collocates with ‘understanding’ and means
‘become stronger or greater’. The other words do not fit the context.)
5 B (‘determine’ means to find out the facts about something. It is the only word which fits the meaning of the sentence.)
6 D (‘matters’ collocates with ‘complicate’ before the gap.
The other words do not fit the meaning of the sentence.) 7 C (‘accumulate’ collocates with ‘knowledge’ and means
to gradually get more and more of something. It is the only word which collocates correctly.)
8 A (‘unsolved’ collocates with ‘mystery’, and is the only word which is correct in the context.)
Flexible follow-up
Ask students to see if they can find any other examples of collocation in the text (easily visible; volcanic eruption; exceptionally difficult; perfectly circular;
geological structure).
EXAM TASK
1 Ask the question to the whole class, and write their suggestions on the board.
Answers
Students’ own answers
2 3.6 Explain the task and check that students understand what they are listening for (how the woman felt about the café at first). After listening, check whether the answers you wrote on the board in Ex 1 were correct.
Answers
Third place: somewhere a variety of people meet and talk.
Somewhere that feels personal and where you can come and go as you wish.
The woman felt intimidated by the idea of going inside, even though she really wanted to.
EXAM FOCUS
3 Explain to students that they are going to do a Listening Part 3 task. Point out that at least one of the questions in this exam task will focus on agreement or disagreement between speakers, but that they may not directly express this. Ask students to suggest ways of agreeing or
disagreeing without being explicit (e.g. agreement: you can add more information to what the other speaker has said;
disagreement: you can give information that opposes what the other speaker has said).
Go through the Exam focus with the class and check for understanding. Then, read through the question and options as a class. Ask students to refer to the audioscript for track 3.6 on page 142 to help them choose the correct option, and to highlight the parts of the script that show agreement.
Take class feedback.
Answers D
M: Great, so what you’re actually doing by visiting the café is all about getting some social contact. You could probably just make your own cheese toastie, maybe even a better one!
W: Right, that’s interesting. It was actually the first café I went to after I moved here. And I almost didn’t go in at first, cos I could see what appeared to be an established group of friends hanging out, laughing and chatting.
It was a bit intimidating but I so wanted to be part of it.
Maybe you’re onto something!
M: You wanted to belong. Most likely you hadn’t
established firm connections yet if you’d only just moved to the area.
F: Apart from a couple of good friends, not really.
LISTENING — Part 3 Multiple choice p31
LESSON OVERVIEW
• Topic: The third place EXAM FILE p33
Learning objective: Students will be better able to identify agreement and disagreement between speakers.
Extra resources
C1 Advanced Exam Trainer
• Listening — Part 3 Multiple choice pp78—79, p80 Ex 4
Digital resources
• Presentation tool p31
• Video: About C1 Advanced: Listening Part 3
BEFORE YOU START
Read through the Exam reference on page 33 of the Exam file before starting the lesson. This will give you information about the specific exam part as well as which particular strategies and skills are important.
DYSLEXIA FOCUS
Dyslexic students may find it difficult to process all the options in the exam task (Ex 5). You could go through these with them or give them extra time to read all the questions and options before playing the recording.
After completing the task, ask them about any difficulties they had with it.
Dyslexic students may also benefit from the structured checklist in the Exam file (p33) to check their
preparedness for this exam part.
Warmer
Tell students about one of your favourite places and how much time you spend there, e.g:
One of my favourite places is a little park in my neighbourhood. It’s very peaceful and I spend a few hours there every Saturday.
Put students into small groups to tell one another about places they really like and why. They can be local, or further away. Take quick feedback and see if the reasons are shared.
5 3.8 Focus students’ attention on the context sentence and elicit who the speakers are and what they are talking about (two sociologists talking about third places).
Ask students to read through the questions quickly, ignoring the options, and identify which two questions are related to agreement (questions 3, 4 and 6, even though questions 4 and 6 do not actually use the word agree).
Play the recording for students to complete the task, then pause it before it repeats and ask students to check their answers with a partner. Play the recording a second time and check answers as a class, focusing on any answers students got wrong and why. You could refer weaker students to the audioscript on page 142 if necessary.
Answers
1 B (‘You can come and go without anyone taking
exception to that. If you don’t turn up for a few weeks, it’s no big deal … That’s key to their success.’ This indicates that this is the characteristic he finds most important.) 2 D (‘Let me just set one thing straight. Many assume
third places are the physical places themselves. On the contrary, it’s …’)
3 B (Julia says that ‘people from different backgrounds who get to know each other develop trust’ and Adam says
‘we’re more likely to encounter people from different walks of life. That’s the perfect learning opportunity in terms of cultural awareness and sensitivity to people from different social groups.’ This is what both speakers agree about.)
4 C (Julia says ‘I must admit though, I’m unconvinced that a place within the work building offers the same freedoms as those elsewhere.’ and Adam says ‘Personally, I think you need to get away from the office altogether. Third places in the public domain are better for the individual’s development,’ indicating their agreement.)
5 A (‘The screen creates a physical barrier, which doesn’t exist at actual third places in the real world’ and ‘That isn’t enough in my opinion.’)
6 C (Julia says ‘I’m so far unconvinced about this but I might be persuaded, given time’ and Adam says ‘I’ve yet to come round to the idea’, indicating his agreement.)
Flexible follow-up
On the board, write the main ideas about the common characteristics of third places from the recording.
• Third places are unprejudiced and without social status.
• The social aspect of third places is more important than their location.
• Third places should be introduced into workplaces.
• Social media cannot be a third place.
Put students into small groups to discuss whether they agree with these ideas or not. Ask them to avoid using explicit words or phrases that indicate agreement or disagreement. You could then have a vote on each one to get a class consensus.
EXAM TASK
Flexible follow-up
Write some simple sentences on the board, e.g.:
• Football is a great game.
• Television is boring.
• Exercise is a waste of time.
Put students into pairs and ask them to agree or disagree with these statements without saying I agree or I think the same (or similar phrases). Then, ask the class to think about what technique they were using.
4 3.7 Explain the task and point out to the class that they just have to listen and decide whether the speakers agree or disagree, and what they agree or disagree about. Remind them that they won’t hear any agreement expressions, so they should listen carefully to find out what the speakers are really saying. In weaker classes, you could ask students to look at the audioscript on page 142 to highlight words the speakers use to agree or disagree.
Check answers as a class.
Answers
1 They agree about how difficult it can be to deal with change.
2 They agree about the need to be better connected with the place in which we live.
3 They disagree about the man’s third place being the streets in his neighbourhood.
EXAM BOOST
The exercise on page 32 in Section A of the Exam boost provides more practice of identifying agreement and disagreement. This could be done in class or for homework.
Answers
1 disagree 2 agree 3 agree
EXAM FILE Section A p32