Tasks: to describe various ways of honouring leaders/famous people
to reconstruct a text about the Mount Rushmore National Memorial
to use suffixes to form nouns (names of occupations/positions)
to compare and contrast words which are similar in English and Polish
Preparation: make copies of the handout (1 copy per student)
bring a photograph of the Mount Rushmore National Memorial
Skills: speaking, reading
Language: vocabulary necessary to describe the ways of honouring famous people
word-formation suffixes
words which are similar in English and Polish
Sources: Task adapted from http://www.nps.gov/moru/park_history/carving_hist/carving_history.htm (National Park Service webpage)
■ Divide your groups into pairs. Give them 2-3 minutes to write down as many ways of honouring famous figures as they can. After that collect their ideas.
■ Explain that the third Monday of February is Presidents’ Day in the US, when people honour their Presidents, especially George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. You can present a few American ways of honouring their presidents (cf. the elementary worksheet – Task ).
Key
[suggested answers:]
· we name streets/squares, schools/universities after them;
· we have the head of our kings on the banknotes;
· there are monuments and statues in many cities;
· there are festivals and competitions named after them (especially artists).
■ Ask whether your Ss know what Mount Rushmore is. If it is possible, show them a picture of Mount Rushmore and explain that they are going to read a text about the monument’s construction. Ask them to complete the task, i.e. match the phrases with the gaps.
■ Check the answers with your group. You may explain some new words, or give your Ss dictionaries and a few minutes to check any new words.
1H 2E 3G 4C 5A 6D 7F 8B
■ Focus your Ss’ attention on the four underlined words in bold (Task ). Ask your Ss’ to complete the table on the worksheets, choose the root and the suffix which are used to form a new word – a name of position/occupation.
■ Then, ask them to find some more examples of words formed in the same way.
· preside + nt à president
· history + ian à historian
· support + er à supporter
· sculpt + or à sculptor
· –NT: assist à assistant | study à student
· –IAN: magic à magician | library à librarian | music à musician
· –ER: manage à manager | dance à dancer | sing à singer
· –OR: act à actor | invent à inventor | sail à sailor
■ Offer –IST as a new suffix which is used for the same purpose. Ask Ss to find some examples.
■ Ask your Ss to make two rules of using these suffixes. Ask When do we use them?
■ Finally, offer some extra information about the suffixes and major exceptions (see below).
Other frequent suffixes:
· –IST: science à scientist | guitar à guitarist
Conclusions:
· we use –IAN and –IST with nouns
· we use –NT, –ER and –OR with verbs
NOTE 1: The suffix –ER can be used to form names of objects, e.g. heat à heater, cook à cooker.
NOTE 2: (some exceptions): cook à cook | football à footballer | athletics à athlete
■ Ask your Ss to pay attention to paragraphs 1–4 and underline any words which look/sound similar to some Polish words. For each word, they should decide whether there are any major differences in meaning (there’s one false-friend), the word’s grammar or pronunciation.
■ Go through the list with them and comment on the differences between English and Polish.
Major pronunciation differences
· project à projekt
· legislation à legislacja
· dynamite à dynamit
Major grammar differences:
· contact à skontaktować się (reflexive verb)
Major semantic differences:
· plaster à gips (it can have the same meaning: BrE plaster = AmE bandaid = Polish plaster)
Words which exist but are not used frequently:
· colossal à kolosalny (more common: ogromny)
· hero à heros (more common: bohater)
· authorize à autoryzować (more common: pozwalać, zezwalać)
· select à selekcjonować, selekcja (more common: wybierać)
No major differences:
· American / America à Ameryka, amerykański
· history / historian à historia, historyk
· granite à granit
· erode à erodować
· location à lokalizacja
· Congress à Kongres
■ If your Ss know some American history, elicit some reasons why Washington and Lincoln were particularly important Presidents in the US history. For example, Washington was the first president, who really built the country. Both of them were leaders of their nation during a war (i.e. American War of Independence and American Civil War), etc.
■ Ask each pair of Ss to choose 5 phrases (not words) from the text which they think are interesting/useful/worth remembering. Then, ask each pair to write 5 sentences with the phrases. Collect their sets of sentences. Later, correct them, type them & print out your exercise. Use it the next time you meet with your class as a vocabulary revision task.
■ [SPEAKING] Ask your Ss to prepare a short presentation describing the history of the monument.
Designed by Bartosz Michałowski for Pearson Longman
Romaniek