Unit 4 Dictation challenge

Student A
Benjamin Franklin: An Early Entrepreneur
Benjamin Franklin was a famous American statesman, diplomat, writer, scientist and 
inventor. He was one of the most versatile and talented men in the American colonies.

However, Franklin couldn’t stand working for his brother and one day decided to run away to Philadelphia.
There he established himself as a printer. He eventually bought the Pennsylvania Gazette, which went on
to become one of the American colonies’ most important newspapers.

Franklin was also active in politics. He became a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly in 1950, and he
was later appointed as the deputy postmaster for the colonies. In this post, he took the opportunity to
reorganise the entire postal service in order to make it more efficient and profitable.

In 1776, Franklin returned to America and helped draft the Declaration of Independence. He went on to be
the American ambassador to France and signed the Treaty of Paris, ending the American War of Independence.
He continued to be deeply involved in politics and helped write the American Constitution. On 17 April 1790,
Franklin died in Philadelphia at the age of 84.

Ready for C1 Advanced

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 Unit 4 Dictation challenge

Student B
Benjamin Franklin: An Early Entrepreneur
Benjamin Franklin was a famous American statesman, diplomat, writer,
scientist and inventor. He was one of the most versatile and talented men
in the American colonies.
Franklin was born in Boston on 17 January 1706. After attending school very briefly, he went to work
for his father, who was a candle and soap maker. He was then apprenticed to his brother, who owned a
printing business. Franklin began writing anonymously for his brother’s newspaper.

By 1748, Franklin was wealthy enough to retire from business. He decided to focus his energies on
science and inventing. In one experiment, he risked seriously injuring himself by flying a kite during a
lightning storm but managed to prove that lightning and electricity are identical.

From 1757 to 1774, Franklin lived in London, where he was the colonial representative for Pennsylvania,
Georgia, New Jersey and Massachusetts. He attempted to improve the poor diplomatic relations between
the British government with the American colonies, but his efforts proved unsuccessful.

Ready for C1 Advanced

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 Unit 4 Dictation challenge

Activity Teaching notes

Pair work: peer dictation
Procedure
Aim › Lead into the topic by asking students to discuss famous entrepreneurs,
To practise verb patterns with either from their own countries or others. Tell students they are going to do
gerunds and infinitives a task to practise gerunds and infinitives using a short biography of an early
American entrepreneur, Benjamin Franklin.
Grammar
Gerunds and infinitives › Organise the class into A/B pairs. Give text A to Student A and text B to
Student B. Tell them not to show each other their texts.
Preparation › Explain the task: Student A has the parts of the text that are missing from
Make a copy of the handout for Student B’s text and vice versa. Students take turns dictating the lines of the
each pair of students. story to their partners, who write them down in the empty spaces provided
in their worksheets. Remind them to mention punctuation and to spell out
Time
any difficult words. Encourage students to ask their partner to repeat or spell
15 minutes things for clarification when necessary.
Lesson link › While students do the task, circulate and make note of any words students
Unit 4, page 50 had trouble pronouncing to explore later during feedback.
› When students finish the peer dictation activity, tell them to set their texts
side by side and compare them. They should be identical!

Extension activity
Tell students to write the verb patterns in bold on a separate piece of paper. Give
them a minute to reread the text and remember the important details about the
life of Benjamin Franklin. Then students turn over their worksheets and together
try to retell the life of Benjamin Franklin from memory. They should include as
many of the verb patterns as they can. To finish, students look at the worksheet
and check to see if they have forgotten anything important.

Ready for C1 Advanced

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