READING AND VOCABULARY 1 Answer these questions about Australia I Do you know how many people live there? 2 Do you know the name of the capital city? 4 What do you think the central part of the country is like? t of the country or on the coast? 3 Where do you think most of the people live, in the central par 5 What Australian animals do you know about? 2 Before you read My First Ride on a Train, check the meaning of these words abandoned camels cassette clouds colourful desert diamonds distance experts famous farms fields food government law meal midnight passengers products recently sand scenery shine shoot soil supply weather Now match some of the words with these definitions I an area of land where it is always dry earning to learn 2 valuable stones Reading in English is one of 3 people who travel on a train, bus or plane the fastest ways of improving your English. When you read 4 you find this on beaches the most important thing to do is to understand the main 5 white or grey things made of water in the sky ideas. Look at photos, titles and the first sentence of each 6 where plants grow new paragraph. These usually contain some or all of the main 2
3 Read My First Ride on a Train What's the passage about? □ a train ride to Sydney taking the train to australia D travelling to the central part of Australia A a child visiting her grandmother My First Ride on a Train My name is Alice Thompson. I come studying Chinese at school). One night from Sydney, Australia and I'm 18 years at about midnight, I watched the nigl old. Recently I had my first ride on a long. sky for about an hour. The stars shone distance train. and what a ride! A friend like diamonds and I travelled on the famous Ghan train. Why is the train called the Ghan? A long We got on in Sydney and we got off in Alice Springs, right in the middle of time ago, Australians needed a way to Australia, more than four thousand travel to the middle of the country. the kilometres away. We spent two days and tried riding horses, but the horses didnt nights on the train, like the hot weather and sand. A hundred and fifty years ago, they brought some The train was wonderful and the food camels from Afghanistan. Ghan is short was great. We ate great meals cooked by for Afghanistan experts! For the first few hundred Camels were much better than horses kilometres of the journey, the scenery was very colourful. There were fields and the for travelling a long distance. For many soil was dark red. After that, it was desert. years, trained camels carried food and The sun shone, there was no wind and other supplies, and returned with wool there were no clouds in the sky. Suddenly, and other products it looked like a place from another time. The Afghans and their camels did this We saw abandoned farms which were until the 1920s. Then the government built more than a hundred years ago built a new railway line, so they didnt The train was comfortable and the people need the camels any more. In 1925. they were nice. During the day, I sat and looked passed a law which allowed people to out of the window, and sometimes tall shoot the animals if they were a problem to other passengers. I read books and In 1935, the police in a town shot 153 listened to my Chinese cassettes (I'm es in one day
4 Read the passage again carefully and answer the questions I Did Alice travel on the train a long time ago? 2 Was her destination on the coast of Australia? 3 Was the scenery the same during the whole journey? 4 Did she study while she was on the train? 5 Did the Australians use horses to travel to the central part of the country? 6 Do they still use camels to deliver goods? 5 Discuss these questions with other students I What sort of people do you think travel on the Ghan train? 2 What kind of towns and villages do you think the train passed? GRAMMAR 1 The -ed form Read the sentences from the passage and answer the questions. I Trained camels carried food and other supplies 2 We saw abandoned farms which were built more than a hundred years ago 3 We ate great meals cooked by experts A Trained, abandoned and cooked are adjectives, but they are also past participles of verbs What are the infinitives of the verbs? B Look at the word order of the underlined parts of sentences. The first one is adjective noun. What is the word order of the underlined parts of the other two sentences? C Why is it meals cooked by experts and not cooked meals by experts? FUNCTION Being polite 1 Read the conversation between a ticket inspector and a passenger on a train Say what the ticket inspector wants. Ticket inspector: Tickets Passenger: Pardon? Ticket inspector: Tickets Passenger: I'm sorry, I dont understand Ticket inspector: I want to see your ticket Passenger: Oh. Here you are Ticket inspector: This is an old ticket Passenger: Pardon? Ticket inspector: It's out of date. It's a month old Passenger: Oh, sorry, that's the ticket I used last week. Ticket inspector: Where's your ticket? Passenger: Here it is Ticket inspector: Right
2 Discuss these questions I What do you think of the ticket inspector' s attitude? 2 What expressions could you use to change it? Read the polite expressions. Use them in the conversation between the ticket inspector and the passenger. Excuse me… Could I (see your ticket) Could I possibly(see your ticket)? ould you mind(showing me your ticket)? Would you mind (if I saw your ticket)? I' m very sorry but(this is an old ticket) The fact is that(it's out of date) Now work in pairs. Practise the conversation 4 Add more lines to the conversation. Use one or more of these questions to make the conversation longer. What time does the train arrive at .? Where do I change to get to .? Is it possible to open the window? Is there a dining car on this train? Now act out the new conversation for the rest of the class VOCABULARY Read the places and activities, Can you remember your first experience of them? Tick the ones that you can remember. P aces cinema circus kindergarten park playground seaside sports stadium swimming pool theatre zoo IIr o Activities learning to ride a bicycle seeing a wild animal seeing a film learning to draw reading comic books iii, iii swimming playing sports for the first time meeting your best friend
READING AND SPEAKING O Read about people's childhood memories Which are happy and which are I I can remember my first visit to the in the apartment next door. I was very zoo. I saw a lion and an eagle. The lion nervous. But we started playing with was very lazy and slept all the time. Hei some toys and I soon stopped feeling was very boring. The eagle suddenly flew nervous. in the air and frightened me. I started to 4 I remember learning to swim -it was cry wonderful. When I was very little, I loved 2 I remember the day my father tried to swimming pools and I always wanted to teach me how to ride a bicycle I wasnt! swim. My cousin showed me how to very good at it. I said, "I don't want to swim. Everyone said that I was Olympic do this!"But my father was very patient standard! and very soon he taught me how to do I it. Now I ride my bicycle every day and: 5 I will never forget my first visit to the I'm much faster than my father cinema.I was about four years old. The screen seemed so big! We watched a 3 I remember my first day at kindergarten cartoon about a huge bear. It was very clearly. There were so many children! wonderful. I only knew one of them, a boy who lived 2 Work in groups. Tell other students about the first time you did one of the activities Example:I saw a lion for the first time when I was about four years old. I went to the zoo with mmy parents GRAMMAR 2 Past tense time expressions 1 Find the following time expressions that appear in My First Ride on a Train Recently… A long time ago… During the day… A hundred and fifty years ago One night Until the 1920s At (about) midnight In1925 Which of them can refer to past or present actions? Now read My First Ride on a Train again and check your answers