February 10, 2010
PRINT: 13-Page Class Handout
LISTEN: MP3 (2:10 - 1,040KB)
PLAY: Online Quiz
| My
1,000 Ideas e-Book |
Breaking News EnglishHOME | HELP MY SITE | 000s MORE FREE LESSONS |
My
1,000 Ideas e-Book |
February 10, 2010PRINT: 13-Page Class Handout |
|
Toyota Recalls More Cars Over Safety FearsToyota is recalling 436,000 of its hybrid Prius cars because of safety fears. The latest problem to hit the world’s largest auto maker is faulty brakes. This is the second major recall of the past six months for the car giant. In September 2009, it recalled 3.8 million Lexus model cars because of accelerator problems. The Prius is the world's most popular hybrid model. It is extremely popular with celebrities who want to show how green they are. Peter De Lorenzo, an expert on Toyota, told the BBC how painful the recall would be: "The Prius is their shining example of their vision of what we should all be driving. It is everything the new Toyota represents, so for them to have to recall hundreds of thousands of them is a tremendous blow to their image."
Toyota president Akio Toyoda acknowledged the recall was bad news for his company. He said Toyota would do everything in its power to regain the confidence of its customers. He wrote in the Washington Post that he was "deeply disappointed" his cars had not met the high standards expected by customers. "We have decided to recall as we regard safety for our customers as our foremost priority," he said. Mr. Toyoda took his full share of the blame for his company’s troubles, stating: "As the president of Toyota, I take personal responsibility. That is why I am personally leading the effort to restore trust in our word and in our products." The recalls will cost Toyota billions of dollars in repair costs and lost sales.
WARM-UPS1. CARS: Walk around the class and talk to other students about cars. Change partners often. Sit with your first partner(s) and share your findings. 2. CHAT: In pairs / groups, decide which of these topics or words from the article are most interesting and which are most boring.
Have a chat about the topics you liked. Change topics and partners frequently. 3. SAFETY: What safety issues are there with the following? Complete this table with your partner(s). Change partners and share what you wrote. Change and share again.
4. SAFE DRIVING: Students A strongly believe driving will be accident free in the future; Students B strongly believe the opposite. Change partners again and talk about your conversations. 5. TOP MODELS: Which of these companies have the best model cars? Rank them and share your rankings with your partner(s).
6. HYBRID: Spend one minute writing down all of the different words you associate with the word ‘hybrid’. Share your words with your partner(s) and talk about them. Together, put the words into different categories. BEFORE READING / LISTENING1. TRUE / FALSE: Read the headline. Guess if a-h below are true (T) or false (F).
2. SYNONYM MATCH: Match the following synonyms from the article.
3. PHRASE MATCH: (Sometimes more than one choice is possible.)
WHILE READING / LISTENINGGAP FILL: Put the words into the gaps in the text.
LISTENING – Listen and fill in the gapsToyota is recalling 436,000 of its hybrid Prius cars ____________________. The latest problem to hit the world’s largest auto maker is faulty brakes. This is the ____________________ of the past six months for the car giant. In September 2009, it recalled 3.8 million Lexus model cars because of accelerator problems. The Prius is the world's most popular hybrid model. It ____________________ with celebrities who want to show how green they are. Peter De Lorenzo, an expert on Toyota, told the BBC ____________________ would be: "The Prius is their shining example of their vision of what we ____________________. It is everything the new Toyota represents, so for them to have to recall hundreds of thousands of them is a ____________________ their image." Toyota president Akio Toyoda acknowledged the ____________________ for his company. He said Toyota would do everything in its power to regain ____________________ customers. He wrote in the Washington Post that he was "deeply disappointed" his cars had not ____________________ expected by customers. "We have decided to recall as we regard safety for our customers as our foremost priority," he said. Mr. Toyoda took his full ____________________ his company’s troubles, stating: "As the president of Toyota, I take personal responsibility. That is why I am personally leading the ____________________ our word and in our products." The recalls will cost Toyota billions of dollars ____________________ sales. AFTER READING / LISTENING1. WORD SEARCH: Look in your dictionary / computer to find collocates, other meanings, information, synonyms … for the words ‘safety’ and ‘fear’.
2. ARTICLE QUESTIONS: Look back at the article and write down some questions you would like to ask the class about the text.
3. GAP FILL: In pairs / groups, compare your answers to this exercise. Check your answers. Talk about the words from the activity. Were they new, interesting, worth learning…? 4. VOCABULARY: Circle any words you do not understand. In groups, pool unknown words and use dictionaries to find their meanings. 5. TEST EACH OTHER: Look at the words below. With your partner, try to recall how they were used in the text:
STUDENT CARS SURVEYWrite five GOOD questions about cars in the table. Do this in pairs. Each student must write the questions on his / her own paper. When you have finished, interview other students. Write down their answers.
CARS DISCUSSIONSTUDENT A’s QUESTIONS (Do not show these to student B)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------- STUDENT B’s QUESTIONS (Do not show these to student A)
LANGUAGE – MULTIPLE CHOICEToyota is recalling 436,000 of its hybrid Prius cars because of safety fears. The latest problem to (1) ____ the world’s largest auto maker is faulty brakes. This is the second major recall of the past six months for the car (2) ____. In September 2009, it recalled 3.8 million Lexus (3) ____ cars because of accelerator problems. The Prius is the world's most popular hybrid model. It is extremely popular with celebrities who want to show how (4) ____ they are. Peter De Lorenzo, an expert on Toyota, told the BBC how painful the recall would be: "The Prius is their (5) ____ example of their vision of what we should all be driving. It is everything the new Toyota represents, so for them to have to recall hundreds of thousands of them is a tremendous (6) ____ to their image." Toyota president Akio Toyoda acknowledged the recall was bad news for his company. He said Toyota would do everything (7) ____ its power to regain the confidence of its customers. He wrote in the Washington Post that he was "(8) ____ disappointed" his cars had not met the high standards expected by customers. "We have decided to recall as we (9) ____ safety for our customers as our foremost priority," he said. Mr. Toyoda took his (10) ____ share of the blame for his company’s troubles, stating: "As the president of Toyota, I take personal responsibility. That is why I am personally leading the effort to restore trust in our (11) ____ and in our products." The recalls will cost Toyota billions of dollars in repair costs and lost (12) ____. Put the correct words from the table below in the above article.
WRITINGWrite about cars for 10 minutes. Correct your partner’s paper. _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ HOMEWORK1. 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 out more about Toyota. Share what you discover with your partner(s) in the next lesson. 3. HYBRIDS: Make a poster about hybrid cars. Show your work to your classmates in the next lesson. Did you all have similar things? 4. PRIUS: Write a magazine article about the Prius recall. Include imaginary interviews with Toyota’s president and an angry customer. Read what you wrote to your classmates in the next lesson. Write down any new words and expressions you hear from your partner(s). 5. LETTER: Write a letter to Toyota president Akio Toyoda. Ask him three questions about cars. Give him three ideas on what to do to restore public trust in Toyota. Read your letter to your partner(s) in your next lesson. Your partner(s) will answer your questions. ANSWERSTRUE / FALSE:
SYNONYM MATCH:
PHRASE MATCH:
GAP FILL: Toyota recalls more cars over safety fearsToyota is recalling 436,000 of its hybrid Prius cars because of safety fears. The latest problem to hit the world’s largest auto maker is faulty brakes. This is the second major recall of the past six months for the car giant. In September 2009, it recalled 3.8 million Lexus model cars because of accelerator problems. The Prius is the world's most popular hybrid model. It is extremely popular with celebrities who want to show how green they are. Peter De Lorenzo, an expert on Toyota, told the BBC how painful the recall would be: "The Prius is their shining example of their vision of what we should all be driving. It is everything the new Toyota represents, so for them to have to recall hundreds of thousands of them is a tremendous blow to their image." Toyota president Akio Toyoda acknowledged the recall was bad news for his company. He said Toyota would do everything in its power to regain the confidence of its customers. He wrote in the Washington Post that he was "deeply disappointed" his cars had not met the high standards expected by customers. "We have decided to recall as we regard safety for our customers as our foremost priority," he said. Mr. Toyoda took his full share of the blame for his company’s troubles, stating: "As the president of Toyota, I take personal responsibility. That is why I am personally leading the effort to restore trust in our word and in our products." The recalls will cost Toyota billions of dollars in repair costs and lost sales. LANGUAGE WORK
Help Support This Web Site
Sean Banville's Book
Thank YouCopyright © 2004-2019 by Sean Banville | Links | About | Privacy Policy
|