Cambridge University Press



Listening 1

Audioscript

Alessandro: Hi there! My name’s Alessandro and I live near Milan in the north of Italy. I’m lucky because I’m bilingual. My dad is Italian and my mum comes from England so I speak both English and Italian at home. It makes learning languages much easier. I’m learning two foreign languages at school: Spanish and German. My Spanish is better than my German. Spanish is easier for me because a lot of the vocabulary is almost the same as Italian. The grammar is very similar too. German grammar is harder than Spanish and the pronunciation is more difficult as well, but I really like it.

I think this Teen Polyglot site is a really good way to practise speaking and listening. I’d like to find someone here whose first language is German. I can help you with English or Italian – or Spanish as well. So, German speakers out there, please call me and let’s start talking and I can practise listening too!

Emilie: Hi! My name’s Emilie. I live in Japan, but my parents are French. At home we only speak French, but I go to a local secondary school so I speak Japanese fluently too. My parents don’t understand Japanese, so I translate for them all the time. It’s really boring! When I was seven, we lived in Australia and I learned English there. I make a few mistakes in English and sometimes I don’t remember words because I don’t speak it regularly, but I’ve got quite a good level.

I started learning Chinese at school last year and I’d like to practise speaking on Teen Polyglot. I can read Chinese, but the pronunciation is very difficult. My friends say that I have a French accent when I speak Chinese! So, if Chinese is your mother tongue and you want to practise speaking French, English, or Japanese, please add me to your list of polyglot friends and we can talk some time.

Answers

Level 1

1

1 Alessandro and Emilie talk about ... .

a the languages they speak

b their language classes at school

c their tips for learning languages

2 The Teen Polyglot website is for teenagers who ... .

a speak more than 10 languages

b don’t like learning languages

c want to practise different languages

2

1 Alessandro is learning / speaks / wants to learn English and Italian.

2 His German is better than / worse than / the same as his Spanish.

3 Spanish grammar and vocabulary are boring / hard / easy for him.

4 He wants to practise reading / listening / writing and speaking in German.

5 Emilie is fluent in two / three / four languages.

6 She often helps her friends / parents / brother with Japanese.

7 She learned English when she was younger in France / Australia / China.

8 She’s learning Chinese / French / Spanish at school in Japan.

EXTRA! / Level 2

3

1 Alessandro thinks learning languages is easy for him because ... .

a his parents are from different countries

b he’s fluent in two languages

c Italian grammar and vocabulary are similar to other languages

2 He wants to use the Teen Polyglot site to speak to ... .

a anyone who is learning German

b people in English

c someone whose first language is German

3 Emilie learned Japanese ... .

a at a language school

b at a secondary school in Japan

c with a teacher at home

4 Emilie says that ... .

a she sometimes makes mistakes when speaking English

b her English is completely fluent

c she often uses a dictionary to help with her English

5 Emilie’s friends think that ... .

a her Chinese is better than her Japanese

b her Chinese writing is good

c she sounds French when she speaks Chinese

Listening 2

Note:

Teacher to create their own task(s) based on the text. See the Teacher’s Notes – Introduction for further details.

Audioscript

Interviewer: Professor Crystal, you are one of the world’s top experts on language. Thanks for coming in today.

David Crystal: It’s a pleasure.

Interviewer: OK, so my first question is: what’s the language with the most words?

David Crystal: That’s a difficult one, as we don’t know for sure how many words each language has. The correct answer is probably English, but again nobody knows how many words English really has. If you look at the two biggest dictionaries of the English language, they list about 500,000 to 600,000 words. But there are lots of words that are not in these dictionaries, and every year, about 25,000 new words come into the English language around the world. So, English now has well over one million words.

Interviewer: One million words! How many words does a normal person know?

David Crystal: Well, it depends on the person’s education. People who read a lot know more words than people who don’t. Most people have an active vocabulary of around 50,000 words and a passive vocabulary about a third larger.

Interviewer: And another question, Professor Crystal. Which is the most frequent letter in English?

David Crystal: The letter E – but it’s not the most interesting letter!

Interviewer: Really? So tell me – which is the most interesting letter, and why?

David Crystal: The letter X. It is not a very frequent letter in English, but no other letter has more meanings than the X when we use it alone.

Interviewer: Oh, really? Can you give me some examples?

David Crystal: Certainly. One of the first things that a child learns when he or she is learning to write is that when you write someone an email or send a text message and you add some Xes at the end it means ...

Interviewer: ... kisses!

David Crystal: That’s right! And when a student does their homework and the teacher finds something that is wrong, the teacher writes …

Interviewer: An X!

David Crystal: … and there are many more examples in my book, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. I give ten meanings for the letter X!

Interviewer: Ten meanings! Unbelievable! Now, my next question is about ...

Reading 1

Answers

Level 1

1

|1 KimSu |2 |a thinks that Isabella is amazing. |

|2 Super Matt |3 |b doesn’t believe Isabella speaks a lot of languages. |

|3 Will TT | |c would like to meet Isabella |

| |1 |d doesn’t think that Isabella has a good life. |

2

| |Isabella |KimSu |Super Matt |Will TT |

|1 ...’s first language is Chinese. | | | |[pic] |

|2 ... wants to learn Chinese and Japanese. | | |[pic] | |

|3 ... is a Russian speaker. |[pic] | | | |

|4 ... thinks that having fun at this age is more important than | |[pic] | | |

|studying. | | | | |

|5 ... learned English at school. | | | |[pic] |

|6 ... says a sentence in all the languages that she knows. |[pic] | | | |

|7 ... is learning French at school. | | |[pic] | |

Level 2

1

1 KimSu doesn’t believe that Isabella ... .

a is good at languages

b has a perfect life

c likes studying

2 Super Matt thinks that Isabella ... .

a speaks fewer languages than him

b doesn’t like learning languages

c is a polyglot

3 Will TT thinks that ... .

a Isabella is a fluent speaker of six languages

b Japanese is harder to learn than English

c Japanese grammar is easy to learn

2

1 Isabella’s first language is Portuguese.

2 Super Matt would like to learn Chinese.

3 Isabella is learning a language on the internet.

4 KimSu thinks it’s important for young people to hang out with their friends.

5 Will TT enjoyed learning English.

6 KimSu thinks it's a mistake to put videos of children online.

7 Super Matt wants to be more like Isabella.

Spoken interaction

Learning objectives

• make comparisons

• give opinions

EXTRA!

➢ talk about likes and dislikes

➢ talk about learning languages

Task description

Students act out a conversation with a classmate in their English class. They give information about, compare and select a language course to attend the following summer. The AB prompt cards provide the information that they need about the language schools.

They need to start and finish the conversation appropriately as well as to include questions and answers about all the points on their lists.

Preparation

Students need to revise the following specific language points from the unit before they do the test:

• comparatives and superlatives

• information questions

You can use activities from the Games bank, Warmers and coolers and the Optional activity ideas to revise the core language in an enjoyable, active way.

Make sure that students understand that they need to use the core language items in their conversations.

Materials

Student A and Student B instruction sheets

Student A and Student B prompt cards

Procedure

• Students work in pairs. Give each student a Student A or B instruction sheet and prompt card.

• Give them three to five minutes to prepare to talk about the information and to ask their partner questions.

• Students can refer to their books and use a dictionary as they prepare the task.

• Students who want to do the EXTRA! task should make notes to answer the questions before they discuss them.

• Students act out the conversation in AB pairs. Observe and assess their performance.

Mixed ability

PER Niveau 1: [*] / [**]

Weaker students produce dialogues of 8 to 10 short exchanges. They should describe the information about their course rather than ask questions, although they should ask questions if their partner misses out some information. When they have exchanged the information, they compare the courses.

PER Niveau 2: [**] / [***]

Stronger students produce longer dialogues including additional points and descriptions of their own. They should use some complex sentences. They should also use appropriate conversational fillers.

Students who do the EXTRA! task:

[*] / [**] Weaker and mid-level students can choose to give their opinions. They include two or three extra utterances in response to the questions.

[***] Stronger students produce more complex exchanges giving their opinions.

Spoken production

Learning objectives

• give basic personal information

• talk about languages

• make comparisons

EXTRA!

➢ give opinions

➢ describe language learning activities

Task description

Students record a short video message to post on a conversation exchange website. The prompt cards provide the information that they need to give about themselves.

They need to start the message with an appropriate greeting and to include all the information on the prompt cards.

Preparation

Students need to revise the following specific language points from the unit before they do the test:

• languages

• language learning verbs

• Unit 1 Words and phrases

• present simple

• present continuous

EXTRA!

• [***] Documents and texts

You can use the PDF picture cards from the website to revise the vocabulary items.

You can use activities from the Games bank, Warmers and coolers and the Optional activity ideas to revise the core language in an enjoyable, active way.

Make sure that students understand that they need to use the core language items in their monologues.

Materials

Student instruction sheet

Two sets of prompt cards:

- Prompt cards x 6

- [***] Gapped prompt cards for stronger students

Procedure

• Give each student an instruction sheet. They read the sheet and check they understand the situation.

• Students take a prompt card and look at the information. Stronger students complete their own prompt cards – they can complete them to be true about themselves or invent the information.

• Give them three to five minutes to prepare to talk about themselves.

• Students can refer to their books and use a dictionary as they prepare the task.

• Students who want to do the EXTRA! task talk about the kinds of activities that they like doing in their language classes and the texts that they like reading and writing.

• Students perform the video messages. Observe and assess their performance. If possible, record the monologues as real video messages.

Mixed ability

PER Niveau 1: [*] / [**]

Weaker students work with the completed prompt cards. They produce a series of simple sentences with the information on the card, as if they were introducing themselves and their language abilities.

PER Niveau 2: [**] / [***]

Stronger students complete a gapped prompt card with true information about themselves or they can invent the information. They produce a series of more complex sentences describing themselves and their language abilities using as much of the core language as possible.

Students who do the EXTRA! task:

[*] / [**] Weaker and mid-level students describe two or three activities that they like doing and say why in simple sentences.

[***] Stronger students do the same as above, but should give more details about what exactly they like and why. They should include some of the [***] Documents and texts words from the Vocabulary bank to talk about texts they like (or don’t like) reading and writing.

Writing

Learning objectives

• talk about languages and language learning

• give opinions and advice

• make comparisons

EXTRA!

➢ make comparisons

Task description

Students read a chat thread question about practising English outside class. They write a reply giving and comparing three tips.

Preparation

Students need to revise the following specific language points from the unit before they do the test:

• language learning verbs

• Unit 1 Words and phrases

• phrases for giving advice and opinions

• comparatives and superlatives

Make sure students understand that they need to use these core language items in their writing.

Materials

Student writing sheet

Note: You may like to edit the writing sheet for stronger students to remove the list of ideas that they can choose from.

Procedure

• Give each student a writing sheet. They read the sheet and check they understand the situation and the message. Make sure they understand that they should suggest and compare three different ideas.

• Students can refer to their books and use a dictionary as they do the task.

• Students who want to do the EXTRA! task should describe language learning activities that they don’t enjoy or find useful and say why.

Suggested word limits

[*] Weaker students: 100–125

[***] Stronger students: 150–175 including EXTRA!

Mixed ability

PER Niveau 1: [*] / [**]

Weaker students write a series of short simple sentences with their advice and opinions. They don’t need to use linkers or to connect their ideas to form a paragraph.

PER Niveau 2: [**] / [***]

Stronger students write a paragraph with their advice and opinions. They use simple linkers (and, but, because, so, etc.) and longer sentences.

Students who do the EXTRA! task:

[*] / [**] Weaker and mid-level students write two or three short sentences about activities they don’t find useful, e.g. I don’t like doing grammar exercises. They’re boring and they aren’t useful. I don’t like translating sentences. It’s difficult.

[***] Stronger students do the same as above, but should give more details about why they don’t find the activities useful. They should use the Unit 1 Words and phrases and the [***] Documents and texts from the Vocabulary bank.

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