Breaking News English

Level: Easier (Try the harder lesson.)

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Audio: (2:13 - 260.3 KB - 16kbps)

THE ARTICLE

A new $4 billion oil pipeline has opened that will pump oil from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. The presidents of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Turkey attended the official opening ceremony in Baku, the Azerbaijan capital. There are high hopes that the pipeline will bring a brighter economic future to the four countries. Cash from the pipeline will help to boost local economies. A letter from US President George W. Bush was read at the ceremony. It contained US support and backing for the pipeline. President Bush said the project was important to provide energy, strengthen economies and improve relations between countries in the region.

WARM-UPS

1. SEARCH FOR OIL: Try to find out as much as you can about oil. Speak to as many students as you can to collect information. Join a partner / group and share your information. Choose four different categories and put your oil information under one of these categories. Make mini oil presentations to the class / other groups. Use your category headings as presentation sections. Vote on the best presentation

2. ENERGY: Talk with your partner / group about energy sources. How important is oil? How bad is oil for the environment? What happens when the world’s oil runs out? What will the world use instead of oil?

Talk about these energy sources. Which are the good and bad points of each? Which ones will be is use in the year 2055?

3. CHAT: In pairs / groups, decide which of these topics or words are most interesting and which are most boring.

Oil / $4 billion / Caspian Sea / Mediterranean Sea / Azerbaijan / Georgia / Kazakhstan / Turkey / energy / technological achievements

Have a chat about the topics you liked. For more conversation, change topics and partners frequently.

4. OIL: Spend one minute writing down all of the different words you associate with oil. Share your words with your partner / group and talk about them.

5. OILY OPINIONS: In pairs / groups, decide which of these opinion you agree with. Discuss how much truth there is in each one.

1. The price of oil is too high.
2. Oil destroys our environment.
3. Our governments will find alternative energy sources.
4. Oil companies do their best to protect the environment.
5. Oil companies have too much power.
6. Oil is the most important of earth’s resources.
7. Oil companies make too much money.
8. Local people should receive money from oil profits.

BEFORE READING / LISTENING

1. TRUE / FALSE: Look at the article’s headline and guess whether these sentences are true (T) or false (F):

2. SYNONYM MATCH: Match the following synonyms from the article:

3. PHRASE MATCH: Match the following phrases from the article (sometimes more than one combination is possible):

WHILE READING / LISTENING

WHOOPS: There are six mistaken words in each paragraph. Find and circle them. Think of a replacement. The mistakes may be in spelling, grammar, meaning or general knowledge.

Caspian oil pipeline opens

A new $4 billion oil pipeline has opened that will jump oil from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. The presidents of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Turkey attended the official opening ceremony in Baku, the Azerbaijan capital. There are low hopes that the pipeline will bring a dimmer economic future to the four countries. Rockets from the pipeline will help to boost local economies. A letter from US President George W. Bush was read at the ceremony. It contained US backing for the pipeline. President Bush said the project was useless to provide energy, strengthen economies and improve relations between villages in the region.

The pipeline is a broken link from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean. It is a diplomatic and a technological achievement. Oil will fly a distance of 1,760 km, from Baku in Azerbaijan, to Turkey. The pipeline now connects the world’s third tiniest oil and gas reserves to the ports on the Mediterranean coast. This will increase America’s and Europe’s need for oil from the Middle East. Iran and the Soviet Union once had total control of the Caspian Sea. That disappeared after the rise of communism. New capitalist economies have arrived. Now neither Iran nor Russia has any steak in the moneymaking pipeline. Instead, Britain owns 30 per cent of it.

AFTER READING

1. WORD SEARCH: Look in your dictionaries / computer to find collocates, other meanings, information, synonyms … for the words ‘pump’ and ‘oil’.

• Share your findings with your partners.
• Make questions using the words you found.
• Ask your partner / group your questions.

2. ARTICLE QUESTIONS: Look back at the article and write down some questions you would like to ask the class about the text.

• Share your questions with other classmates / groups.
• Ask your partner / group your questions.

3. WHOOPS: In pairs / groups, compare your answers to this exercise. Check your answers. Talk about any relationships the correct and mistaken words have.

4. VOCABULARY: Circle any words you do not understand. In groups, pool unknown words and use dictionaries to find their meanings.

5. STUDENT OIL SURVEY: In pairs / groups write down questions about oil.

• Ask other classmates your questions and note down their answers.
• Go back to your original partner / group and compare your findings.
• Make a mini-presentation to another group / the class on your findings.

6. TEST EACH OTHER: Look at the words below. With your partner, try to recall exactly how these were used in the text:

 DISCUSSION

STUDENT A’s QUESTIONS (Do not show these to student B)

1. Did this headline make you want to read the article?
2. Did you know about the pipeline before reading this article?
3. Do you like reading about technology?
4. What do you know about oil prices?
5. Do you know anything about OPEC?
6. Do you think this new pipeline is a good thing?
7. How can you stop terrorist attacks along a 1,700 km pipe?
8. Where does your country get its energy from?
9. Do you think oil companies are greedy?
10. Do oil companies do enough to clean up after oil spills?

STUDENT B’s QUESTIONS (Do not show these to student A)

1. Did you like reading the article?
2. What did you think of this news?
3. How important is oil in our lives?
4. What would happen if oil reserves suddenly dried up?
5. Do you think gas / petrol prices in your country are too high?
6. What damage does oil do to the environment?
7. Do you think petroleum companies care about the environment?
8. What do you think the energy of the future will be?
9. What will happen to the oil companies?
10. Did you like this discussion?

AFTER DISCUSSION: Join another partner / group and tell them what you talked about.

1. What question would you like to ask about this topic?
2. What was the most interesting thing you heard?
3. Was there a question you didn’t like?
4. Was there something you totally disagreed with?
5. What did you like talking about?
6. Do you want to know how anyone else answered the questions?
7. Which was the most difficult question?

SPEAKING

OIL ROLE PLAY: The world must decide on just one resource for the future. There are four choices for this resource. A $10 billion contract goes to the winner of the role play.
Team up with classmates who have the same role as you. Develop your roles and discuss ideas and “strategies” before the role play begins. Introduce yourself and your role to the other role players before the role play begins.

Change roles and repeat the role play. Comment in groups about the differences between the two role plays. Discuss which of the energy sources you think we will use in the future. Decide which team wins the $10 billion.

LANGUAGE QUIZ

In pairs / groups, decide on the answers to the following questions. The questions are based on language from the news article.

1. “to be in the pipeline” means …

(a) Something that is being decided now.
(b) Something that has become caught and cannot escape.

2. What are the nationality adjectives for Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Turkey?

3. Which word is not usually used after “boost of ~”?

(a) energy (b) meat (c) capital (d) cash (e) speed

4. The prefix “inter” can be added to national to make “international”.
What other geography words can you think of that are prefixed with “inter”?

5. Which word is not normally used before or after “flow”?

(a) cash (b) chart (c) watch (d) free (e) constant

6. Which word is not a synonym of “collapse”?

(a) crumble (b) downfall (c) fall (d) die (e) cave-in

7. Which word is not a synonym of “arrived”?

(a) mushroomed (b) emerged (c) appeared (d) surfaced (e) sprang up

8. Another meaning of the word “stake” is …

(a) A piece of wood pointed at one end for putting into the ground
     as a marker or tent peg.
(b) A thick slice of meat, usually beef.

LISTENING

Listen and fill in the spaces.

Caspian oil pipeline opens

A new $4 billion oil pipeline has opened ____ ___ ____ ___ from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. The presidents of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Turkey attended ___ ________ ________ ceremony in Baku, the Azerbaijan capital. There are high hopes that the pipeline will bring a brighter economic future to the four countries. Cash from the pipeline will ____ __ ____ local economies. A letter from US President George W. Bush was read at the ceremony. It contained US ________ ___ ___ pipeline. President Bush said the project was important to provide energy, strengthen economies and improve relations between countries __ ___ _______.

The pipeline __ __ _____ ____ from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean. It is a diplomatic and a technological achievement. Oil will ____ __ ________ of 1,760 km, from Baku in Azerbaijan, to Turkey. The pipeline now connects the world’s _____ _______ ___ ___ gas reserves to the ports on the Mediterranean coast. This will reduce America’s and Europe’s ____ ___ ___ _____ the Middle East. Iran and the Soviet Union once had total control of the Caspian Sea. That disappeared
_____ ___ ________ __ communism. New capitalist economies have arrived. Now neither Iran nor Russia ___ ___ ______ __ the moneymaking pipeline. Instead, Britain owns 30 per cent of it.

HOMEWORK

1. VOCABULARY EXTENSION: Choose several of the words from the text. Use a dictionary or Google’s search field (or another search engine) to build up more associations / collocations of each word.

2. INTERNET: Search the Internet and find information on the Caspian Sea pipeline. Share your findings with your class in the next lesson.

3. OIL: Write an information sheet on the different products that are made from oil. Compare your ideas with your classmates’ ideas in your next lesson.

4. LETTER: Write an imaginary letter to the boss of a major oil company to complain about the damage oil does to the environment. Show your letter to your classmates in your next lesson. Did you write about the same things?

ANSWERS

TRUE / FALSE:

SYNONYM MATCH:

PHRASE MATCH:

WHOOPS:

Caspian oil pipeline opens

A new $4 billion oil pipeline has opened that will pump oil from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. The presidents of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Turkey attended the official opening ceremony in Baku, the Azerbaijan capital. There are high hopes that the pipeline will bring a brighter economic future to the four countries. Cash from the pipeline will help to boost local economies. A letter from US President George W. Bush was read at the ceremony. It contained US backing for the pipeline. President Bush said the project was important to provide energy, strengthen economies and improve relations between countries in the region.

The pipeline is a direct link from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean. It is a diplomatic and a technological achievement. Oil will flow a distance of 1,760 km, from Baku in Azerbaijan, to Turkey. The pipeline now connects the world’s third largest oil and gas reserves to the ports on the Mediterranean coast. This will reduce America’s and Europe’s need for oil from the Middle East. Iran and the Soviet Union once had total control of the Caspian Sea. That disappeared after the collapse of communism. New capitalist economies have arrived. Now neither Iran nor Russia has any stake in the moneymaking pipeline. Instead, Britain owns 30 per cent of it.

LANGUAGE QUIZ:

     2. Azerbaijani, Georgian, Kazakh and Turkish

     4. intercontinental / intercity / intergalactic / interstate / inter-regional …