Learning aims: by the end of the of the lesson the students will be able to read the text for the main idea; for specific information by finding the description of a monster and location of Lock Ness; read for detail by recording notes and identifying true/false sentences.
Equipment: the map of G.B., handouts, various pictures of dinosaurs on the walls, notes on the blackboard, a video film about underwater dinosaurs.
Lesson.
- Starting the aims of the lesson.
- Warming up.
Watch an extract from the film about the dinosaurs that lived in the oceans millions years ago and describe their appearance.
Pre-reading activity
- Exchanging opinions.
Work in buzzles. Change opinions if such animals can live in the water in our days.
While-reading activity
- /Scanning./
Read the text quickly to grasp the description of a monster some people say they have seen.
- /Matching./
Choose the picture of dinosaur suitable to this description.
- /Skimming./
Read the first passage quickly, look at the map and find Lock Ness. Do you see any other lakes in Scotland? Is Lock Ness the largest of them?
- /Ordering./
Read the second passage carefully and put the notes in the right order.
- /Scanning./
Read the third passage and find out the information that explains why scientists can not say if Nessy exists in reality.
- /Ticking off items./
Read the fourth passage and mark if these statements are true of false.
Post-reading activity
- /Summarizing the text. /
Each group of four has only one of the passages to prepare its retelling in 3-4 sentences. Then the students exchange the partners from the other groups and reconstitute the whole story.
- /Speaking as follow up./
Present the story.
- /Homework./
Look for additional information on the topic.
- /Giving marks./
STUDENT’S HANDOUT
Lock Ness Monster
Warming up
Watch an extract from the film about the dinosaurs that lived in the oceans millions years ago and describe their appearance.
Pre-reading task
Activity 1
Discuss in groups if such animals can live in the waters in our days. Exchange opinions.
While-reading task
Activity 1
Read the text quickly to find the description of a monster some people say they have seen.
Lock Ness Monster
- In the north of Scotland there is a very famous lake – Lock Ness. It is not the largest lake in Britain, but it is thirty-five kilometers long. The water of the lake is dark and always very cold. And Lock Ness is full of fish.
- There cannot be many people who have not heard of the Lock Ness monster which appears in the news from time of time. For many years there have been reports of unusual large animals in the lake. There are many stories about the water monster “Nessie”. One of them says, for example, that one Sunday morning a young woman looked out of the dining-room window of the house near the lake and saw in the waters of Lock Ness the “largest animal I have ever seen”. It had, she said later, a giraffe-like neck, a very small head and a great dark grey body.
- That was in 1934, the year in which the first book about the Lock Ness monster was published. It is one of the reports received between 1933 and the present time.
Is the monster a fact or fiction?
One of the theories about the Loch Ness monster is that these animals in the North Sea, but came to the lake to produce their young in it. After volcanic action in this area, some of them could not come back to the North Sea and stayed in Lock Ness. They continued to live there.
People who say that have seen the monster describe it as an animal with a small head, a long neck and a large body. Underwater photographs, however, did not help to find out what the monster really is. Expedition of British, American and Canadian scientists took more then one hundred thousand underwater photographs in Lock Ness, but neither of them was picture of a large animal.
- Year after year thousands of tourists come to Lock Ness, put their tents and watch the lake in the hope that one of the animals will come up.
A lot is written and said about the monster, and for some people Nessie is good business: shirts with “Nessie” on them, books about the monster and all kinds of picture postcards and souvenirs are sold to thousands of visitors every year.
The Lock Ness monster is a real attraction for people from all parts of Britain and from many other countries. It is interesting to know that museum of the Lock Ness monster was opened in Scotland several years ago. It has more than four thousand written reports and drawings of Nessie made by those people who have “seen” it.
Let us hope, however, that scientist will be able to say whether the Lock Ness monster is a fact or fiction.
Activity 2
Choose the picture of a dinosaur suitable to this description.
Activity 3
Read the first passage quickly, look at the map and find Lock Ness.
Do you see any other lakes in Scotland? Is Lock Ness the largest of them?
Activity 4
Read the second passage carefully and put these notes in the right order.
- unusual large animals
- the house near the lake
- from time to time
- the largest animal I have ever seen
- who had never heard
- in the water of Lock Ness
- a very small head
- a young woman looked out
- which appears in the water
- there have been reports
Activity 5
Read the third passage and find out the information that explains why scientists can not say if Nessie exists in reality.
Activity 6
Read the forth passage and mark if these statements are true of false.
- Some people think that the Lock Ness monster is a fact.
- They saw that several animals came up.
- Some people make business using the stories about Nessie.
- Visitors can buy many different picture postcards with Nessie.
- The Lock Ness monster doesn’t attract people from other countries.
- The Lock Ness monster is a fact.
- They will open a museum of Nessie in some years.
Post-reading task
- Now work in groups of four, each group having only one of the passages that are in the text. Prepare the retelling of the passage in 3-4 sentences.
- Now work in groups of two, answer the following question and explain your answer.
Then exchange the partners from the other groups and reconstitute the whole story, from beginning to end.
Can you believe that a whole colony of great unusual animals lives in Lock Ness?
Homework:
- Find additional information on the topic.
- Imagine that you have visited Lock Ness and heard many tales about Nessie. Be ready to retell them and to answer your classmates’ questions.