Opportunities

LESSON NOTES AUTOBIOGRAPHY GAME Materials: None Time: Fifty minutes This worksheet is a listening and speaking activity and can be done any time after Module 1 of Opportunities Upper-Intermediate Students Book.

u p p e r - i n t e r m e d i a t e

Step 1: Tell the students that you are going to tell them about your life (or the life of one of the authors of Opportunities). They must listen and find things that are not true. There are four false things in the autobiography of one of the co-authors of Opportunities. Step 2: Tell the students about your life or use the information below to tell them about one of the co-authors of Opportunities. Autobiography of one of the three co-authors: Born in Cardiff, Wales in 1955. a very premature baby who only survived because the hospital had installed an incubator in Cardiff Hospital the week before. First language was Welsh, and only learned English when he went to live in England. Brought up in the country on the borders of England and Wales. First memory was nearly drowning in a sheep-dip (=the place where they wash sheep) on a local farm. Was saved by one of the farm labourers who heard the splash. Went to school from the age of eight in Wales - on a small island off the island of Anglesey, which is itself off the coast of Wales. School was a kind of Welsh Alcatraz with very harsh conditions. Tried to escape twice but was caught both times before reaching the mainland. After leaving school, worked in Holland for three months constructing a park, but got the sack for crashing a small tractor into a lake. Then hithchiked around Europe and got as far as Turkey before running out of money. Studied History at Cambridge University and then did a postgraduate course in education at Oxford. After completing studies, taught in Spain for a year and then a few months in Scotland. When living in Edinburgh, took up playing the bagpipe but had to give up due to complaints from the neighbours.

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Pearson Education, 2002

Opportunities

u p p e r - i n t e r m e d i a t e

Then spent two years travelling and teaching in South America. Worked in the Dominican Republic, Colombia and Bolivia. Lived in Bolivia in a large house most of which was in ruins. Had scorpions in the bathroom and was invaded by hundreds of bats. Spent a night in the local prison for breaking the curfew (=at ten oclock everyone had to leave the streets, because of military rule in Bolivia at the time). Spent a month travelling down the Amazon and its tributaries on cargo and local passenger boats. Returned to Europe and went to work in Madrid. Met Spanish wife (to be) a week after arriving. Worked for ten years in the British Council in Madrid and then in the University of Alcala de Henares. Met co-author while both were doing a hang-gliding course and started writing materials together in 1987. Currently lives on a mountainside above the monastery of San Lorenzo de Escorial (Spain) at 1100 metres (higher than the highest mountain in England). Step 3: Divide the class into pairs. They then try to guess the things that they think were false in the autobiography. Things that are false1- First language was not Welsh. 2- Did not try to escape from school (the rest is true). 3- Did not take up the bagpipe. 4- Did not meet co-author while doing a hang-gliding course. Students then tell you what they think was false and you say if they are right or not. Follow-up Students write notes for their own autobiography including three or four false bits of infomation. If students know each other well, tell them to think of some things that the other students cannot possibly know about already. In groups of three or four, they tell the other students about themselves and guess which bits of information are false.
Michael Harris

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PHOTOCOPIABLE

Pearson Education, 2002