Cyberspace
Cyberspace
Suggested level – B1
Oksana Savchenko
A teacher of English
Specialising secondary school #5,
Brovary,
Kyiv region
Objectives:
1) to activate the previously learnt vocabulary;
2) to develop listening, reading, writing, communicative skills;
3) to deepen students’ knowledge;
4) to develop pupils’ skills of pair-work;
5) to foster the desire to get necessary information;
6) to encourage students to share their own attitude to the topic under discussion.
Equipment: student’s book and workbook “Gateway”, PowerPoint presentation of the lesson, handouts, interactive whiteboard.
Procedure
I.
Introduction
T: Good morning, everyone! I am glad to see you all today. Today we are going to discuss cyberspace, its benefits and influence on our lives.
II.
Warm-up
T: How many hours a week do you spend on a computer?
P: Approximately 25 hours.
T: What do you use it for in a typical week?
P2: I prefer to use it for writing essays and sending emails.
P3: I use it for watching movies and downloading music.
P4: As for me, I always read different news and chat online. Sometimes I play games but my parents do not appreciate it.
T: Look at the list. How are their names related to the following words? Do the matching.
1.
Mark Zuckerberg
2.
Victor Hayes a.
b.
WWW
3.
4.
5.
Jimmy Wales
Sir Tim Berners-Lee
Sergei Brin
Key: 1-c, 2-d, 3-e,4-b, 5-a. c.
Facebook d.
Wi-Fi e.
Wikipedia
(The pupils and the teacher discuss the inventions.)
II) Main part of the lesson
1.Reading
T: Today we are going to talk about the inventor of the WWW.
Pre-reading
T: How important are the Internet and the World Wide Web for you? Why?
P3: I think the Internet is really important for me. It’s very useful for finding information for schoolwork, for example.
While-reading activity
T: You are going to read an interview. Match the questions from the website of Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, with answers 1-4 in the text.
A Was it easy to invent the WWW?
B Where were you when you invented the WWW?
C Why do you say everything is simple?
D What made you think of the WWW?
1_____________________________
I was working in a physics laboratory called CERN. CERN is in Geneva,
Switzerland. At CERN, people study High Energy Physics. That is the physics of really, really small particles—particles much smaller than atoms. If you want to
investigate really, really small things, you need enormous machines called accelerators. That’s what they have at CERN.
2_________________________________
Well, things were frustrating in the past. There was different information on different computers, but you couldn’t get all the information with just one computer. People at CERN came from universities all the over the world. They brought all types of computers with different types of software. Sometimes you had to learn a different program for each computer. So I wrote some programs to take information from one computer system to put it in another system. And then I thought “ Can’t we connect all these different information systems and make just one imaginary system? Everybody could read the same system.” And that became the WWW.
3_______________________________________
Actually inventing it was simple. The difficult part was to persuade everybody to use the same system. It’s incredible that so many people now use it.
4_________________________________________
Well, because it is, basically. I want you to know that you too can make new programs which create new, fun ways of using computers and using the Internet. I want you to know that, if you can imagine a computer doing something, you can program a computer do that. The only limit is your imagination. And a couple of laws of physics. Of course, what happens with computers is that you have a basic, simple idea. Then you have to add things on to it to make it work. But all good computer programs are simple inside.
Key: 1-B, 2-D, 3-A,4- C.
Post-reading activity
T: Answer the questions.
1) What is high energy physics?
2) What is an accelerator?
3) Why did people have to learn different programs for different computers at CERN?
4) What was Sir Tim Berners-Lee’s solution to the problem with computers at CERN?
5) What was the hardest part about making the World Wide Web?
6) How can you create a new computer program, in Berners-Lee’s opinion?
2.Listening
Pre-listening
T: Sir Tim Berners-Lee’s invention is really important. Do you remember who created Wikipedia? We have already mentioned his name today.
1) What is Wikipedia?
2) Who is Wikipedia written by?
3) How many languages does Wikipedia appear in?
T: Listen to a radio programme about Wikipedia and check your answers.
While listening
Look at this text about Wikipedia. It contains six mistakes. Listen again to the radio programme and find the mistakes.
Wikipedia is the fifth(ninth) most popular website in the world. It was started in 2001 by two Australians(Americans) but it isn’t written by them. Their first encyclopedia was(not) an incredible success. Then the website became a
‘wiki’, a website that visitors can change and add information to. Approximately
170(1700) articles are being added every day. ‘Wiki wiki’ is an African(Hawaiian) expression which means ‘quick’(‘fast’), and one of the reasons that Wikipedia is so popular is that articles can change quickly when things change in the world.
Wikipedia has offices in many countries, including Poland. One of the five most popular editions of Wikipedia is the Polish edition.
After listening activity
T: Have you ever used Wikipedia? When and what for?
Would you like to write an article for Wikipedia? What would you write about? Would it be long or short?
3.Writing
T: When we write articles they are rather long. But what about text messages?
How can you make them shorter? Right, there are different abbreviations. Match the words and abbreviations.
1.
Are
2.
At
3.
before
4.
Great
5.
Later
6.
Please
7.
See
8.
Too
9.
What
10.
You
11.
Your a) YR b) L8R c) @ d) C e) PLS f) U g) WOT h) R i) B4 j) GR8 k) 2
Key: 1-h, 2-c, 3-I, 4-j, 5-b, 6-e, 7-d, 8-k, 9-g, 10-f, 11-a.
T: Use abbreviations to make these messages shorter.
1) What are you doing at the weekend?
2) Thanks for helping me with my homework.
3) Can you come tomorrow to fix my computer?
4)
Don’t forget to send me a message later tonight.
5) You should be happy because your exam results are excellent.
T: Look at this task and write a text message. Use abbreviations.
You need to use the Internet tomorrow to do a piece of work for school, but your connection at home doesn’t work. Write a text message to a friend asking if you can go to their house tomorrow to use the Net.
Give your message to your partner and write a reply to their message. Keep sending messages until you both know exactly when, where and why you are meeting and what you can do later.
4. Speaking
T: Do you often use websites and social networks for communication? Which do you prefer?
There are also some advantages and disadvantages of social networks and websites. Divide into two groups. Discuss pros and corns of cyberspace.
Now let’s fill in the table.
Inventions of cyperspace Advantages
Wikipedia
WWW
Disadvantages
Youtube
IV) Summing-up
T: You all understand that cyperspace is an integral part of our lives. We can’t imagine a day without it.
Use your imagination a little bit and at home prepare projects about your own inventions of cyberspace.
