UNIT 1.

STARTING OUT VIETNAM

A. READING COMPREHENSION
I. Pre- reading
Class work. Answer the following questions:
1. Where is Vietnam?
2. What countries does Vietnam border with?
3. What do you know about Vietnam’s geographic features?
4. What are the advantages and disadvantages of the country’s geographic
position?
II. While- reading
Read the following passage, then do the exercises below.
Vietnam is officially known as The Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The country
occupies the eastern coastline of the South East Asian peninsula, and has an area of
331.000 square kilometers. From north to south it extends about 1650 kilometers.
Vietnam is bordered by China to the north, the south China sea to the east and south,
the Gulf of Thailand to the south – west, and Cambodia and Laos to the west. The
capital, Hanoi, is located in the north, while the country’s largest city, Ho Chi Minh
city is in the south.
The northern and western sections of Vietnam are dominated by the mountains
of the Annamese Cordillera, continuations of the mountains of the Chinese province
of Yunnan and Guangxi to the north. Part of this mountainous region can reach an
elevation of more than 2440 meters. A major plateau known as the Central highlands,
although sparsely populated, supports rubber, coffee and tea plantations.
East of the Annamese Cordillera in the north is an alluvial plain drained by the
Red River and other streams that flow into the Gulf of Tonkin.The Red River forms
a deep, relatively wide valley that runs in a straight northwest-southeast direction for
much of its course from the Chinese border to the edge of its delta. In the Red River
Delta and in the valleys of the region’s other major rivers are found wide limestone
terraces, low hills and extensive alluvial plains. The north-east coast is dotted with
hundreds of islands composed mostly of limestone.
The Central Lowlands is a narrow coastal strip where short, often torrential
rivers, flowing east to west, form fertile deltas. Here, the Annamese Cordillera runs
parallel to the coast, with many peaks rising to elevations of more than 2000 meters.
Several spurs jut into the South China Sea isolating sections of the coast making
communication difficult.

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 South of the Central Lowland is the alluvial plain of the Mekong River Delta
which occupies the southern portion of the country. The Mekong River Delta, with
its fertile and alluvial soils, is Vietnam’s most productive rice-growing region.
(Extracted from Place and Change, p.58)
III. True – False
After each statement write T for true, F for False, or NI for no information,
according to the information given in the reading passage.
1. …..The distance from the north end to the far most of the south of Vietnam
1650 kilometers.
2. …..People from all the neighbouring countries may enter Vietnam by land.
3. …..The mountains in Yunnan and Guangxi are in the north of China.
4. …..The delta in the north of Vietnam is scattered with deep and wide valleys.
5. …..The central delta isn’t formed by tidal waves but small rivers.
6. …..Communication in the Central Lowlands is difficult.
7. …..Rivers in Vietnam mostly flow into the Gulf of Tonkin.
8. …..The Central Highlands is the second biggest in Vietnam.
IV. Reading review
Answer the following questions based on information in the reading passage
1. How many deltas are mentioned in the passage?
2. How are the alluvial plains in Vietnam formed?
3. What occupied the southern portion of the country?
4. What are the typical features of the delta and rivers’ valleys’ in the North?
5. Where is the difficult to communicate?
V. Post – reading
Learning new words
1. Small mountains or rocks = …………………………………..
2. Thinly (scattered) = …………………………………..
3. Mountain tops = …………………………………..
4. Height of a place = …………………………………..
5. Make up, form from = …………………………………..
6. Quite = …………………………………..
7. Lie in = …………………………………..
8. Area of land projecting far into the sea = ………………………………

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 B. VOCABULARY STUDY
I. Word form table
Fill in the table with appropriate forms of the given words.
Verb Noun Adjective
……………… Coast ………………
Dominate ……………… ………………
………………… Mountain ………………
………………… ……………… Alluvial
……………… Continuation ………………
Support ……………… ………………
……………… Platation ………………
……………… ……………… Productive
occupy ……………… ………………
……………… Elevation ………………
……………… ……………… Extensive
……………… Province ………………
……………… ……………… Fertile
……………… ……………… Isolating

II. Paragraph writing

Write a paragraph about a country in the world that you know well. There
should be some details in your writing as followed:
– Position of the country in the region
– Name and position of the capital
– Population
– Languages or first language
– Some information of the highest mountains, the longest rivers
(Your writing should be at least 120 words)
III. Translation
Find in the reading passage words/ phrases which mean:
1. Bồi đắp = ……………..
2. Trấn giữ = ……………..
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3. Núi Hoàng Liên Sơn = ……………..
4. Vịnh Bắc Bộ = ……………..
5. Một dải đất hẹp ven biển = ……………..
6. Hàng trăm hòn đảo nằm rải rác = ……………..
7. Dân cư thưa thớt = ……………..
8. Chạy thẳng theo hướng TB – ĐN = ……………..

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 UNIT 2. POPULATION
A. READING COMPREHENSION
I. Pre – reading

Discuss in groups of 3 or 4. Answer the questions:

1. According to the latest census, what is the world’s population?

2. How fast has it increased in the last two decades?
3. What make the world’s population increase?
4. What have been done to slow the population growth?
5. Do you have any new approaches to control the growth?
II. While – reading

Read the following passage, then do the exercises below.

How many people have ever lived on earth? Fifty billion is one recent
estimate, although it is difficult, if not impossible, to pick a date and say that
here humanity began.

In history and prehistory, the human population was less than 5 million
people. In contrast, the world population in 1991 was approximately 5.4 billion.
This increase is all the more dramatic when we realize that it was not until
around 1850 that the population of the world reached 1 billion.

How did this change come about? Population size is closely tied to the
availability of food and to the technology of a society.

Thus, over the tens of thousands of years of basic agriculture, world

population grew only slightly.

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 It is with the Industrial Revolution of the past 250 years that such a sustained
increase in population has taken place

This increase occurred first in the industrializing societies, where public

health advances in sanitation (sewers, indoor toilets, boiling water, sterilizing
instruments, and pasteurizing milk) and changes in agricultural technology
combined to increase food supply and to lower death rates.

Population growth takes place when death rates decline while birthrates
remain high.

This is what happened in industrializing societies in the eighteenth and

nineteenth centuries, triggering a major change in population dynamics.

(From Modern Sociology, p.510)

B. TRUE – FALSE

After each statement write T for true, F for False, or NI for no information,
according to the information given in the reading passage.

1. ……………There are now fifty billion people living on earth.

2. ……………Historic and prehistoric people were about 5 millions.
3. ……………It is not impossible to tell the date when humanity began.
4. ……………There are over 6 billion people living on Earth today.
5. ……………The number of people living in prehistoric time was very small.
6. ……………The population has increased due to the abundance of food and
high technology.
7. ……………In industrialized societies birthrates gradually reduce.
C. READING REVIEW

Complete the following statements based on information in the reading passage.

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 1. Industrial Revolution occurred ……………………..ago.
2. Population increased just a little for…………………..
3. The steady increase of the world population was acquired after………
4. Sewers, indoor toilets, etc., are examples of ……………………
5. In industrializing countries, there are ……………………good
conditions for the population development.
6. High birthrates with decline of death rates will certainly make……….
D. EMPHASIS

Look at the expressions and do the exercise below.

1. It is with the Industrial Revolution of the past 250 years that such a
sustained increase in population has taken place.
2. It is important to know the loss after the storm.
3. It is accommodation that they need.
4. It is Jordan who broke the news to the public.

Use the similar way to rewrite the following sentences.

1. The domestic workforce undertook post – war reconstruction.

2. The falling fertility level had made the catch – cry ‘populate or perish’ a
reality.
3. British immigrants were preferred.
4. Because of the shortage of shipping, many export objectives were not
achieved.
5. The British government was not very enthusiastic, although it entered into
a migration scheme with Australia.
6. The skilled workers were required to rebuild the structure only after the
civil war.

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7. The government had a head – aching problem of sending university
graduates back to their hometowns.
8. To explain why international population movements occur, the categories
of “push” and “pull” factors should be used.
E. VOCABULARY STUDY

Match the suitable words in column A to column B to make a noun. Some

words have more than one matching.

A B

Basic Agriculture

Dramatic Availability

Food Change

Major Dynamics

Pasteurizing Estimate

Population Increase

Recent Population

Sterilizing Instrument

Sustained Milk

World Size

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 F. TRANSLATION

Translation the following paragraph into Vietnamese.

The world’s population is growing at an ever- increasing rate, and many

actually double – from 6 to 12 billion over the next century. The fastest
expansion is occurring in poor, less developed nations – the very places
where food, housing, sanitation and economic opportunity are in
shortest supply. As the population of the world expands at a rapid rate,
the fear that food supplies and natural resources will be exhausted and
that the air and the water will be polluted has occupied both scientific
and popular attention.