A frightening experience
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A frightening experience Activity 1 Decision making Working in groups of four, read through the following activity and aim to reach a group decision in about 20 minutes. You are a group of friends and you are going hiking in Scotland among the rivers, mountains and lochs (lakes). You do not plan to stay out overnight. It is early autumn. Look at the items in the box below and decide: what you would wear what you would take with you what you would not take if you would add something which is not in the box your reasons for these decisions. compass camera map bars of chocolate walking boots mirror jeans whistle bottled water binoculars mobile phone lightweight tent batteries first aid kit waterproof jacket flask of hot drink walking trousers Kendal mint cake* insect repellent thick socks torch shorts fleece string Swiss army knife trainers waterproof trousers notebook and pencil *An energy-giving sugar and mint bar from the north of England, often used as emergency food supplies by walkers. Record your answers here: My group would wear the following items of clothing because: Item © www.teachitworld.com 2013 Reason for wearing 20371 Page 1 of 10 A frightening experience We have decided to put these items into our rucksack/backpack because: Item Reason for inclusion We would not take the following items because: Item Reason for rejecting item The following item is not included in the box: ............................................................................ We would take it in our rucksack/backpack because: ............................................................... ................................................................................................................................................... ................................................................................................................................................... ................................................................................................................................................... © www.teachitworld.com 2013 20371 Page 2 of 10 A frightening experience Share your decisions with the rest of the class and try to agree on the 10 most essential items for the day’s hike. 1. .......................................................................................................................................... 2. .......................................................................................................................................... 3. .......................................................................................................................................... 4. .......................................................................................................................................... 5. .......................................................................................................................................... 6. .......................................................................................................................................... 7. .......................................................................................................................................... 8. .......................................................................................................................................... 9. .......................................................................................................................................... 10. .......................................................................................................................................... Activity 2 Predicting What can go wrong on a day’s hike in the mountains? Work in pairs to make a list. 1. .......................................................................................................................................... 2. .......................................................................................................................................... 3. .......................................................................................................................................... 4. .......................................................................................................................................... 5. .......................................................................................................................................... 6. .......................................................................................................................................... 7. .......................................................................................................................................... 8. .......................................................................................................................................... 9. .......................................................................................................................................... 10. .......................................................................................................................................... © www.teachitworld.com 2013 20371 Page 3 of 10 A frightening experience Activity 3 Listening to check predictions You are going to listen to a student describing a hike in Scotland which went wrong. Read the list of problems below. Which did the speaker experience? Tick them as you listen. 1. 2. The speaker had a bad cold. They took a different route from the one they had planned. 3. They started too late. 4. One friend was carrying too much in his backpack. 5. 6. They were very tired. The weather was bad. 7. It was getting dark. 8. They couldn’t find a path down off the mountain. 9. One friend hurt his ankle. 10. They had to sleep on the side of the mountain. 11. They lost some of the things they were carrying. 12. They and their things got wet in the river. 13. There was a loch (lake) at the bottom of the mountain. 14. The sides of the loch were very steep. 15. They found a boat, but it had no oars. 16. They had to climb round on a very narrow path. □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ Activity 4 Vocabulary A number of geographical features are mentioned in the recording. Label the picture with the words in the box. mountain loch (lake) river © www.teachitworld.com 2013 cliff face path steep slope boulder 20371 gentle slope narrow ledge Page 4 of 10 A frightening experience Activity 5 Listening for language When we describe an exciting or frightening event, we often use intensifiers and modifiers to make the story seem more exciting. The first example from the recording is: ‘quite a foolish decision’. The word ‘decision’ is pre-modified by ‘foolish (= stupid)’ and the noun phrase ‘foolish decision’ is modified by the word ‘quite’ – ‘quite’ changes the meaning to indicate that the decision was only partly stupid. However, when the event is then described by the speaker, it becomes clear that this is an understatement – the decision to take an unknown path up the mountain was in fact a very stupid idea. This structure is often used in English to add drama and surprise to the narrative, as the modifying word is in sharp contrast to the events which follow. Nouns can be modified by adjectives, other nouns, or prepositional phrases, and adjectives can be modified by adverbs. The next example is ‘the path looked really inviting’. The word ‘really’ intensifies the meaning of ‘inviting’ – it makes it stronger. The speaker is trying to justify the decision to take an unknown path late in the day by increasing its appeal. Intensifiers are a special type of modifier: adverbs which strengthen the meaning of adjectives or other adverbs. Listen to the recording again with the transcript and underline all the modifiers and intensifiers you hear. What does the listener do to show she is interested? Activity 6 Telling a story Plan to tell a story based on a true event which happened to you. Choose one of the following titles: a frightening experience an exciting experience a happy experience an embarrassing experience. Planning: Decide what parts of the event are important to the story. Write a short title for each part, to remind you when you are speaking. Look up any essential vocabulary you will need and write it under each title. Make sure your story has an ending. Telling: Tell your story to a partner. When you are listening, make sure you show the speaker that you are interested. © www.teachitworld.com 2013 20371 Page 5 of 10 A frightening experience Teaching notes Level: advanced/proficiency (C1/C2). Aims: to reach a decision as a group to understand the gist of a long authentic audio recording to work on language from the recording (geographical terms, and intensifiers/modifiers) to practise telling a story. Timing: approximately 90 minutes. Preparation You will need the accompanying authentic audio recording, downloadable from www.teachitworld.com (Quick search: 20371). The recording lasts just under six minutes and contains some background noise. Answers Activity 1: decision making There are no right or wrong answers, but the advice on the following website (available at the time of writing) could be useful for you or for the students: www.peterrobins.co.uk/walking/what-to-take.html Activity 3: listening to check predictions The speaker experienced all the problems (in the order listed) except for numbers 1 and 9. Activity 4: vocabulary mountain cliff face steep slope narrow ledge gentle slope path river loch (lake) boulder © www.teachitworld.com 2013 20371 Page 6 of 10 A frightening experience Activity 5: listening for language You may not want to go into the detailed explanations with your learners. The important thing is that they should understand how and why to use modifiers when telling a story. quite a foolish decision: adjective pre-modifying the noun decision and adverb premodifying the noun phrase a foolish decision two in the afternoon: prepositional phrase post-modifying two really inviting: intensifying adverb pre-modifying the adjective inviting a straight, steep climb: adjectives pre-modifying the noun climb too heavy: adverb pre-modifying the adjective too absolutely exhausted: adverb pre-modifying the adjective exhausted very, very windy: adverbs pre-modifying the adjective windy grassy slope: adjective pre-modifying the noun slope a 70 degree slope: noun phrase pre-modifying the noun slope quite wet: adverb pre-modifying the adjective wet a bit sort of worried: adverbials pre-modifying the adjective worried about sort of two-three hours: adverbs pre-modifying the quantifier two-three, which itself pre-modifies the noun hours completely drenched: adverb pre-modifying the adjective drenched wet grass: adjective pre-modifying the noun grass waterproof gear: adjective pre-modifying the noun grass massive boulders: adjective pre-modifying the noun boulders a bit of a hairy climb: adverbial pre-modifying the noun phrase a hairy climb; adjective pre-modifying the noun climb a massive rowing boat: adjectives pre-modifying the noun boat absolutely exhausted: adverb pre-modifying the adjective exhausted the really kind of frightening bit: adverbs pre-modifying the adjective frightening, which itself pre-modifies the noun bit grassy slope: adjective pre-modifying the noun slope a really narrow ledge: adverb pre-modifying the adjective narrow, which itself premodifies the noun ledge just about as wide as: adverb pre-modifying the adverb about, which itself pre-modifies the adjective as wide as really awkward scrambling: adverb pre-modifying the adjective awkward, which itself pre-modifies the noun scrambling a heavy bag: adjective pre-modifying the noun bag late at night: adverb pre-modifying the adverbial phrase at night The speaker makes sounds such as Mmm or Aah and uses expressions of surprise such as Oh no! and Gosh! to show that she is interested. NB The recording also lends itself to work on verbs of movement (sliding, clambering, grabbed, paddling, wading, scrambling) or synonyms (foolish/silly; stuff/things; soaked/drenched; arses/backsides; gear/equipment; massive/huge/enormous). © www.teachitworld.com 2013 20371 Page 7 of 10 A frightening experience Transcript Listener: Oh, so, what happened then? Speaker: So I went hiking in Scotland recently and we basically made quite a foolish decision and decided to take a detour Listener: Mmm Speaker: to climb over a mountain, but we didn’t set off until about two in the afternoon Listener: Okay Speaker: which … and the path looked really inviting, but after about 20 minutes it became just like a straight, steep climb Listener: Mmm Speaker: and my friend brought too much stuff with him. His bag was sim… just, like, too heavy for him, so I ended up having to swap bags halfway through and his bag was too heavy for me as well, so we were both absolutely exhausted Listener: Yeah Speaker: by the time we got to the top, and it was very,very windy. We were soaked, and it was getting dark Listener: Oh no! Speaker: and we were basically stranded at the top of this mountain. We knew it would be dark in about 45 minutes and we had to just make our way down the mountain as quickly as we could Listener: Yeah Speaker: So we had to go off the path, basically, and we just went down, kind of just sliding down on our arses down … down this sort of grassy slope Listener: Oh God! Speaker: just searching for somewhere to sleep and we ended up just having to sleep on, like, a 70 degree slope Listener: Oh my God! Speaker: and it’s, it’s quite wet, cold Listener: Eugh! Speaker: a bit sort of worried Listener: Mmm Speaker: um, and woke up the next day and managed to make our way down the rest of the mountain. It took us about sort of two-three hours of clambering down this river, and sliding, and losing some of our stuff on the way Listener: Oh gosh! © www.teachitworld.com 2013 20371 Page 8 of 10 A frightening experience Speaker: Just everything got completely drenched because we were basically sliding down wet grass Listener: Yeah Speaker: and waterproof gear isn’t designed to take that much of a battering Listener: Yeah, yeah, yeah Speaker: We got to the bottom. We, we thought, ‘Ah yes! We’re finally here. We’ll be fine. All we’ve got to do now is get over that loch.’ Listener: Aah Speaker: And we walked to the loch, and we got there and we were just about to sort of cheer, and we looked, and inside the loch were just these slopes just, just like cliff faces Listener: Oh gosh! Speaker: And so we just thought, ‘How on earth are we going to get across there?’ Listener: Mmm Speaker: And my friend just sunk down on the floor in despair Listener: Oh no! Speaker: ’cause the other way was just like massive boulders that you’d have to clamber over, so I was, like, just trying to be positive, so I saw that there was a boat on the other side of the loch and I dropped all my stuff and I thought, ‘Great! I can go and … go and get that boat, bring it back and take our stuff.’ So I climbed around the loch, without my bag, and I was like, yeah, I really wouldn’t want to do this with my bag Listener: Mmm Speaker: It was a bit of a hairy climb Listener: Yeah Speaker: Got to the other side and flipped the, flipped the boat over. It was like a massive rowing boat, so it took all my strength to flip it over. Flipped it over, and there were no oars. Listener: Oh God! Speaker: So I was still just think like … just had that, like, mindset where I was thinking we’re going to get out of this situation Listener: Mmm, mmm, mmm Speaker: I’m not going to panic. So I just, I ate a whole Kendal mint cake, got in the boat, grabbed a stick, and I started paddling with the stick and with my hands and just sort of frantically doing this, and I looked to the side and I literally wasn’t moving, and I stopped, and then I started moving backwards. Listener: Oh no! © www.teachitworld.com 2013 20371 Page 9 of 10 A frightening experience Speaker: So I then went to the other side of the loch. My friend was still sat on the other side, just thinking, ‘What on earth is he doing?’… got … I ended up then having to drag the boat back to where it was, wading through the water, climbed back over to him. By this time I was absolutely exhausted Listener: Yeah Speaker: and then I said, ‘I don’t know what we’re gonna do. We can’t climb over that with our bags. And then he just said, ‘Well, we don’t really have any…any other choice, so we’ll just have to do that.’ Listener: Oh gosh! Speaker: So then, this was the really kind of frightening bit. We…we just put our bags on and it was almost like going into like another zone, because there was a ten-foot drop into the loch Listener: Mmm Speaker: and we were just up against this kind of grassy slope just on a really narrow ledge just about as wide as us Listener: Mmm Speaker: and then a few bits where you just had to kind of do really awkward scrambling, especially with like a heavy bag … um … and yeah we b…both, we both kind of just sort of one foot in front of the other, don’t think about anything, don’t look down, it will be over in 20 minutes, and managed to get over to the other side and … yeah … it was a bit of a … it was a learning curve. Listener: It sounds like a nightmare. Speaker: Not going to go off the path Listener: Mmm Speaker: or go up mountains late at night again. Listener: Mmm © www.teachitworld.com 2013 20371 Page 10 of 10
