Pancakes Day

Pancakes Day is celebrated in the UK on the last Tuesday before Lent. Listen to the followig audio by the BBC and do the activities below.

Pancakes Racing

-    What’s shrove Tuesday?

-    Define the following terms:

o   Feast:

o   Lent:

o   Fasting:

-    Complete the following sentence:

o   Pancakes are flat thin cakes made of __________, _________ and __________ which are usually fried and everyone loves eating them with ___________, ___________, ___________, ____________ or all other kind of things on Pancakes Day.

o   One of the big challenges of pancake making is __________ them: throwing them up in the air and caching them in the _________.

-    What strange tradition in the UK is associated to Shrove Tuesday? _______________.

-    Choose the correct answer:

o   There’s 2 / 4 / 10 people in every team

o   There’s about 30 or 40 / 20 or 30 / 40 or 50 yards stretch

o   Each member has to run up these yards carrying a flying hat / big bag / frying pan with a pancake inside it.

o   On the way they have to flip the pancakes at least once / twice / three times.

o   When they get to the end they have to pass the frying pan on to the next partner who then throws it back / jumps / runs back.

o   If you drop the pancake you have to pick it up and put it back in your frying pan / you are no longer part of the competition.

o   Unless you finish the race with a pancake in your frying pan, anybody’s pancake, it doesn’t have to be your team’s pancake, you are classified / disqualified / unqualified.

-    There are two reasons why the pancake race is held, what are they?

-    Why is the winning team called ‘Team Harris’?

 

Now watch and listen to this news clip and then complete these sentences with the missing words.

-   Lent is a time for ______ things.

-   Shrove Tuesdays is the day for cleaning out the _______.

-   Pancake races appeal to people’s ________ nature!

-   Everyone’s got ‘a _________ tooth’!

-   People in Britain have been celebrating Pancake Day for ________ years.

-   The tradition started in ________ when a woman ran to church holding a ______________!

Pronunciation

Here you have the link to a very useful tool: a Phonemic chart to improve your pronunciation or become familiar with difficult sounds. If you click on the different symbols you will hear the sound and by clicking on the top right hand corner you will get the pronunciation of sample words containing this sound. You can download it to use on your PC or iPad. Try it, listen and repeat each example, then record yourself saying them. You can try it as many times as you want.

Once you are familiar with the different sounds try to find more examples for each of them. You can use your dictionary or an online dictionary like wordreference.

Valentine's Day

Listen to the following podcast by the BBC about the history and traditions of this day.
Then do the following activities:

1. Reading Quiz

• Are these sentences true or false? Or is the answer not given in the text? Choose the correct answer.

1. St Valentine was a famous Roman Emperor who was famous as a romantic. True / False / Not given
2. The very first Valentine’s card was sent over 500 years ago. True / False / Not given

3. Disappointed Korean men who have received no Valentine's cards eat a special dish in April. True / False / Not given

4. Some Valentine’s cards are now sent through cyberspace. True / False / Not given
5. Lonely policemen in Liverpool are looking for love by sending out many Valentine’s cards. True / False / Not given

2. Love idioms: guess their meanings!

• See if you can match these commonly used idioms connected to love with the correct definition:

1. to be head over heels in love

2. to fall for

3. to tie the knot

4. to have a crush on someone

a. to be attracted to someone without publicly showing it
b. to get married
c. to fall in love to with somebody
d. to be very much in love

• Now try and complete the following sentences using one of the above idioms in the correct form:

1. My fiancée and I have been engaged for nearly a year so we’re going to ________ in the summer.

2. I ________ one of my workmates but I’m too shy to tell him.

3. She is __________ in love with her new boyfriend. She talks about him all the time. It’s getting quite boring now.

4. I ________ my girlfriend the first time I saw her and I’m still crazy about her now.

Dickens 2012

Have you read 'A Christmas Carol' or 'Oliver Twist'? So now you know something about Dickens. The year 2012 marks the bicentenary of his birth. To learn a bit more about his life and work watch the following video and answer the following questions:

1. What were the names of Dicken's parents?
2. How many siblings were they?
3. When did the family move to London?
4. How many hours a day did he work in the Blacking Factory?
5. What was his job in 1827?
6. When did Dickens begin his journalistic carreer?
7. Write the title of three of his works.
8. Which was his pet?
9. Where did Charles and Catherine land when they travelled to America?
10. What caused the end of his marriage to Catherine?
11. When and how did Dickens die?