Wednesday December 15, 2004
Intermediate +

THE ARTICLE

In sensational airline news, Continental Airlines been blamed for causing the Concorde crash near Paris in July 2000. The US airline could find itself being charged with manslaughter and millions of dollars in damages. The official report into the crash, released earlier, put the blame for the crash on two major factors: one was design faults that made the fuel of the supersonic airplane weak; the other was a piece of metal that had fallen from a Continental Airlines plane five minutes before the Concorde had taken off, which caused a tire to burst and pierce the fuel tank resulting in a mid-air explosion. The crash killed all 109 passengers, plus four people on the ground in the only fatal incident in Concorde’s thirty-year history. All Concordes were removed from service last year.

 Continental was quick to issue a strongly-worded press statement vehemetly denying any responsibility for the crash and vowed to fight the claims in court. The statement said, “We are outraged that media reports have said criminal charges may be made against our company and its employees.” However, judicial experts said evidence revealed the strip of metal that fell off the Continental aircraft played a “major role” in the aviation disaster. The strip did not conform to aviation industry standards, being made from titanium instead of the regulation aluminium, which would not have burst the tyre. The report also calls into question the maintenance record of Air France. The weak fuel tank was first reported in 1979, after which seven fuel tanks were pierced by debris from burst tyres. This defect was not fixed until after the crash.

WARM UPS / COOL DOWNS

1. CHAT:  Talk in pairs or groups about Concorde / Continental Airlines / airplane disasters  /  flying / blame / corporate responsibility for passenger safety / …
To make things more dynamic, try telling your students they only have one minute (or 2) on each chat topic before changing topics / partners. Change topic / partner frequently to energize the class.

2. BOUND FOR NEW YORK: Students role play two passengers (who do not know each other) flying on Concorde from London to New York. Have them strike up conversations with other passengers on the airplane.

3. CONCORDE BRAINSTORM: Ask students for facts / feelings / opinions on the Concorde. Students talk about these in pairs. A few starters: champagne, London to New York in 3 hours, Mach 1, movie star and rock star passengers …

4. 2-MINUTE DEBATES: Students face each other in pairs and engage in the following (for-fun) 2-minute debates. Students A are assigned the first argument, students B the second. Rotate pairs to ensure a lively pace and noise level is kept:
Going by ship is safer than by airplane. vs. Airplane is safter.
Concorde should never have stopped operating. vs Concorde was expensive and dangerous.
Concorde was so beautiful. vs How can an airplane be beautiful?
There should be stricter safety checks on airplanes. vs. That would greatly increase air fares.
One day we’ll travel in hypersonic airplanes 7 times faster than Concorde and go to the moon. vs. Impossible.
Airplane food is disgusting. vs. Better than McDonalds.

PRE-READING IDEAS

1. WORD SEARCH: Students look in their dictionaries / computer to find collocates, other meanings, information, synonyms … of the words ‘blame’, and ‘sonic’.

2. TRUE / FALSE: Students look at the headline and predict whether they believe the following statements are true or false:
(a)  Continental Airlines could find itself being charged with manslaughter.  T / F
(b)  The official report into the crash blamed a weak fuel tank. T / F
(c)  Concorde is a hypersonic airplane.  T / F
(d)  The crash was the seventh fatal incident in Concorde’s thirty-year history.  T / F
(e)  Continental quickly accepted responsibility for the crash.  T / F
(f)  A strip of metal that fell off the Continental aircraft played a “minor role” in the aviation disaster. T / F
(g)  The strip of metal was illegal.  T / F
(h)  Concordes are still flying between Paris and New York.  T / F

3. SYNONYM MATCH: Students match the following synonyms from the article:

(a)	sensational	announced
(b)	manslaughter	maddened
(c)	released	lethal
(d)	burst	forcefully
(e)	fatal	foul play
(f)	vehemently	correspond
(g)	vowed	breathtaking
(h)	outraged	wreckage
(i)	conform	promised
(j)	debris	explode

4. PHRASE MATCH: Students match the following phrases based on the article (sometimes more than one combination is possible):

(a)	sensational	itself being charged
(b)	blamed for	explosion
(c)	could find	news
(d)	charged	tyre
(e)	put the blame	statement
(f)	mid-air	question the maintenance record …
(g)	issue a	for the crash on …
(h)	strongly-worded	causing the crash
(i)	conform to	with manslaughter
(j)	burst	statement
(k)	call into	standards

 

WHILE READING ACTIVITIES

1. GAP-FILL:  Put the words on the right into the gaps.

Continental Airlines blamed for Concorde crash

In __________ airline news, Continental Airlines been blamed for causing the Concorde crash near Paris in July 2000. The US airline could f ind itself being __________ with manslaughter and millions of dollars in damages. The official report into the crash, released earlier, put the __________ for the crash on two major factors: one was __________ faults that made the fuel of the supersonic airplane weak; the other was a piece of metal that had fallen from a Continental Airlines plane five minutes before the Concorde had taken off, which caused a tire to burst and __________ the fuel tank resulting in a mid-air explosion. The crash killed all 109 passengers, plus four people on the ground in the only __________ incident in Concorde’s thirty-year history. All Concordes were removed from __________ last year.		pierce charged service sensational fatal blame design
Continental was quick to __________ a strongly-worded press statement vehemently denying any responsibility for the crash and vowed to fight the claims in __________. The statement said, “We are __________ that media reports have said criminal charges may be made against our company and its employees.” However, judicial __________ said evidence revealed the strip of metal that fell off the Continental aircraft played a “major role” in the aviation disaster. The strip did not conform to aviation industry __________, being made from titanium instead of the regulation aluminium, which would not have burst the tyre. The report also calls into question the __________ record of Air France. The weak fuel tank was first reported in 1979, after which seven fuel tanks were pierced by __________ from burst tyres. This defect was not fixed until after the crash.		maintenance court standards outraged debris issue experts

2. TRUE/FALSE:  Students check their answers to the T/F exercise.

3. PHRASE MATCH: Students check their answers to the phrase match exercise.

4. QUESTIONS: Students make notes for questions they would like to ask the class about the article.

5. VOCABULARY:  Students circle any words they do not understand. In groups pool unknown words and use dictionaries to find the meanings.

POST READING IDEAS

1. GAP-FILL: Check the answers to the gap-fill exercise.

2. QUESTIONS:  Students ask the discussion questions they thought of above to their partner / group / class. Pool the questions for all students to share.

3. VOCABULARY: As a class, go over the vocabulary students circled above.

4. STUDENT-GENERATED SURVEY: Pairs/Groups write down 3 questions based on the article. Conduct their surveys alone. Report back to partners to compare answers. Report to other groups / the whole class.

5. ‘BLAME/ SONIC’: Students make questions based on their findings from pre-reading activity #1.

6. DISCUSSION:  Students ask each other the following questions:
(a)  What is/was your image of Concorde?
(b)  What is your image of American airlines?
(c)  What is your favourite airline and why?
(d)  Is Continental Airlines responsible for the Concorde crash?
(e)  Who is more responsible, Continental or Air France?
(f)  Is airline safety strict enough?
(g)  What do you think of Continental illegally putting a titanium instead of an aluminium strip og metal on its airplane?
(h)  Do you worry about safety when you fly?
(i)  People often say it’s safer to fly than to drive. What do you think?
(j)  Do you want to try hypersonic travel (London to New York in 30 minutes)?

7. COURT ROLE PLAY:  Students (pairs / groups) choose one of the roles below and brainstorm ideas and arguments for their role plays. Conduct the role plays (either individual role players, or teams of role players, with one elected member being spokesperson and the teacher changing that person occasionally to give everyone a chance. Discussion after the role plays on what was said.
Roles: Continental Airlines CEO, French aviation expert, family of dead passenger, Air France CEO, other…

HOMEWORK

1. VOCAB EXTENSION: Choose several of the words from the text. Use a dictionary or the Google search field to build up more associations / collocations of each word.

2. INTERNET: Search the Internet and find more information on Homo floresiensis. Share your findings with your class next lesson.

3. CONCORDE HISTORY: Create an information poster outlining the history and technological achievements of Concorde.

4. LETTER TO CONTINENTAL: Write a letter to the Continental Airlines CEO expressing your outrage at the illegal metal strip that fell off and caused the Concorde to crash.

ANSWERS

TRUE / FALSE:
(a)  Continental Airlines could find itself being charged with manslaughter.  T
(b)  The official report into the crash blamed a weak fuel tank. T
(c)  Concorde is a hypersonic airplane.  F
(d)  The crash was the seventh fatal incident in Concorde’s thirty-year history.  F
(e)  Continental quickly accepted responsibility for the crash.  F
(f)  A strip of metal that fell off the Continental aircraft played a “minor role” in the aviation disaster. F
(g)  The strip of metal was illegal.  T
(h)  Concordes are still flying between Paris and New York.  F

SYNONYM MATCH:

(a)	sensational	breathtaking
(b)	manslaughter	foul play
(c)	released	announced
(d)	burst	explode
(e)	fatal	lethal
(f)	vehemently	forcefully
(g)	vowed	promised
(h)	outraged	maddened
(i)	conform	correspond
(j)	debris	wreckage

PHRASE MATCH:

(a)	sensational	news
(b)	blamed for	causing the crash
(c)	could find	itself being charged
(d)	charged	with manslaughter
(e)	put the blame	for the crash on …
(f)	mid-air	explosion
(g)	issue a	statement
(h)	strongly-worded	statement
(i)	conform to	standards
(j)	burst	tyre
(k)	call into	question the maintenance record …