Date: 27.02.2015
ETRC Spring School for EFL teachers
Topic: Sights of London
Instructor: Irina Pomazanovschi, ETRC co-director, university lecturer IRIM, MA
Task 1
GAP FILL: Put the words in the column on the right into the correct spaces.
Time stands still in London
BNE: Time ______ still in London on May 27 for one of the
hand
world’s most recognizable landmarks. Big Ben, the famous
ticking
147-year-old clock that rises above Britain’s Houses of
chiming
Parliament, mysteriously stopped ______ and ______ for
90 minutes. The clock’s minute ______ stopped at 10.20
stood
PM and then started moving again at 11.50 PM.
Engineers are ______ as to why the clock’s usually reliable
glitch
______ failed and cannot explain the ______. Speculation
ruled
that London’s unseasonably hot weather was too much for
baffled
the clock’s workings has been ______ out. Temperatures
in London reached a high of 31.8C on Saturday, making it
mechanism
England’s hottest day in May since 1953.
The ______ timepiece is renowned for both its accuracy
elegant
and ______. It survived the bombing attacks on London
kept
during World War II and ______ time to within one and a
chimes
half seconds of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). It has been
known to be late on the ______ occasion: snow caused
odd
the clock to ring in the New Year ten minutes late in 1962.
Many people ______ believe Big Ben is either the name of
resides
the clock itself or of the tower that ______ it. The name
houses
actually refers to the 13-ton main bell. Big Ben was named
after
Sir
Benjamin
Hall,
who
______
the
clock’s
commissioned
construction. The official name for the majestic tower in
erroneously
which Big Ben ______ is St. Stephen’s Tower.
SYNONYM MATCH: Match the following synonyms from the article:
still
b. mysteriously
c. baffled
d. glitch
a.
malfunction
accommodates
occasional
motionless
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renowned
f. accuracy
g. odd
h. erroneously
i. houses
j. majestic
e.
grandiose
flummoxed
mistakenly
unfathomably
precision
illustrious
Task 2: What’s the word?
CABIN
SHELTER CONDOMINIUM
NURSING HOME
DORMITORY
FARM HOUSE
HOUSEBOAT
MOBILE HOUSE
SINGLE-FAMILY HOUSE
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Task 3: ANALOGIES. Complete the analogies with a kind of housing. There may be more than one
possible answer.
Task 4: My dream House! If you had a choice, where would you like to live? Draw your dream
house and then tell about it.
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