Inside Out

e-lesson Week starting: 1st September 2008

1. New York City

The subject of this week’s lesson is the city that ‘never sleeps’, and which has
probably provided the backdrop to more well-known films and TV programmes than
anywhere else in the world: New York.
Level
Pre-intermediate and above (equivalent to CEF level A2-B1 and above)
How to use the lesson
1. Brainstorm on the subject of New York City. If any of your students have ever
been there, ask them to describe their experiences. You could perhaps also touch on
some of the topics mentioned on Worksheet A.
2. Divide students into pairs and hand out Worksheet A. Give them at least five
minutes to put the mixed-up pieces of information back together again. Note that in
purely grammatical terms there is more than one option in a couple of places, but
there is only one way of maintaining the sense of the text.
3. When the time is up, check answers in open class. Ask the students to turn over
their copies of Worksheet A or temporarily hand them back to you. Hand out
Worksheet B, and keeping the students in their pairs, give them plenty of time to find
and correct the mistakes. Each piece of information contains three mistakes. Point out
that the mistakes are all grammatical or lexical, and that for each mistake they are
only required to either correct or add one word.
4. Check answers in open class.
5. If you wish, finish by handing out copies of Worksheet C, which contains corrected
versions of all the pieces of information.

2. Related Websites
Send your students to these websites, or just take a look yourself.
http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City
The New York City entry in Simple English Wikipedia. Accessible to
pre-intermediate level.

http://nycvisit.com/
The official New York City tourism website. Intermediate level and above.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A199389
The New York City entry in h2g2, an online encyclopedia linked to the BBC.
Intermediate level and above.

This page has been downloaded from www.insideout.net.

It is photocopiable, but all copies must be complete pages. Copyright © Macmillan Publishers Limited 2008.
 Inside Out
Answers: (Exercises 1 and 2; corrections for Exercise 2 in bold)

1. New York is the largest city in the United States, with a population of more than 8
million. If you include the areas around the city, the total population is about 19
million.

2. The city has lots of famous buildings, including very tall skyscrapers such as the
Empire State Building. Many of the skyscrapers are in the district of Manhattan.

3. Because so many of its businesses and services function 24 hours a day, New York
is sometimes called ‘The City that Never Sleeps’.

4. New York is also known as ‘The Big Apple’, though no one is sure where this
name comes from.

5. Around 40 million American and foreign tourists visit New York every year. The
most popular tourist attractions include the Statue of Liberty, Times Square and
Central Park.

6. New York is one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world. Around 170
different languages are spoken in New York, and more than 35% of the city’s people
were born outside the United States.

7. The United Nations has its headquarters in New York, and so do many
multinational companies. The city also contains important universities, museums
and theatres.

8. Some films and TV programmes suggest that New York is a dangerous city with a
lot of crime. However, it has now become one of the safest cities in the United States,
with much less crime than in the 1980s and early 1990s.

9. Most New Yorkers travel around by public transport, and the city is the only one
in the United States where fewer than half of all households own a car.

10. New York’s subway (underground train) system has more than 450 stations, and
functions 24 hours a day.

This page has been downloaded from www.insideout.net.

It is photocopiable, but all copies must be complete pages. Copyright © Macmillan Publishers Limited 2008.