Sydney Harbour Bridge

Have you ever been to Sydney?

Have you ever seen an amazing bridge anywhere in the world?

Skim through this article titled A Guide to Sydney Harbour Bridge to find the answer to these questions.

  1. What does Sydney Harbour Bridge connect?
  2. How long did it take to build the bridge?
  3. How many men built the bridge?
  4. How many men died while building the bridge?
  5. How much did the bridge cost?
  6. How many steel rivets were used?
  7. How many lanes are on the bridge?
  8. How many litres of paint were used to paint the bridge?
  9. How high is the Sydney Harbour Bridge?
  10. How high are the traffic lanes above the water?
Answers: 1. north and south shores/ Milsons Point and Dawes Point, 2. 8 years, 3. 1400, 4. 16, 5. $4.2 million, 6. 6 million, 7. 8 traffic lanes + 2 rail lanes, 8. 272,000 litres, 9. 135 metres, 10. 51 metres

Now read the article again and look closer at the language. Answer these questions to get a better understanding of the language.

  1. Why do they call the Sydney Harbour Bridge the “coat hanger”?
  2. What does “exercise their forefingers” mean?
  3. “The likelihood of the bridge actually being built was slim to none during this time.” What does this mean?
  4. What does it mean by “the bridge had warmed locals’ hearts”?
  5. What happened here – “a moment temporarily disrupted by a treacherous Captain”?
Answers: 1. because the shape of the bridge looks like a hanger to hang clothes on, 2. to take photos using the first finger on the hand, 3. "slim to none" means fairly unlikely, 4. the people of Sydney liked the bridge, 5. a Captain with a bad reputation cut the ribbon of the bridge before the Premier, it was just a short moment before they arrested him

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Reflection on autonomous transport

Over this month you have read about autonomous cars, listened to a talk on autonomous flying taxis and discussed your own opinion. Now it’s time to write a reflection.

REFLECTION

Look back at the texts, the Exploration, Vocabulary, Comprehension, Images and Opinion tasks and use the information to write a reflection on the topic of autonomous transport. Think about what you have learned, what was interesting, and what your overall response is.

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Discuss autonomous transport

Now that you have read the article We asked people if they would trust driverless cars and listened to How autonomous taxis could change the way you travel this month it’s time to have a discussion to share your findings and your opinion.

OPINION

Use your answers for Vocabulary and Exploration as well as Comprehension and Images to have an extended group discussion.

  • What is your opinion on autonomous transport?
  • What do you think it will be like in the future?

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Autonomous flying taxis

How would you feel about travelling in an autonomous flying taxi by yourself?

Rodin Lyasoff talks about this idea on TED Talks. Listen to the talk and take notes as you listen.

COMPREHENSION

Listen for a second time and use your notes to help you create comprehension questions based on this talk. Write the questions including the answer. Check through the transcript if you need extra help with this task. Try to make at least 6 comprehension questions.

IMAGES

Find images related to the topic of autonomous vehicles – cars and flying taxis. Look for a variety of images including graphs, photo’s or infographics. Try to gather at least 4 images to share with other students.

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Autonomous cars

Autonomous cars are being developed and trialed at a rapid pace. It will soon be quite normal to see cars driving on the road without a human driver.

  • What do you think of this idea?
  • Would you like to travel in an autonomous car?
  • What do you think the advantages would be of an autonomous car?
  • What do you think the disadvantages would be of an autonomous car?

Read this article from The Conversation titled We asked people if they would trust driverless cars.

VOCABULARY

While you read through the article highlight any words that you don’t understand or that show an interesting use of language. Make a list of this vocabulary and use your English-English dictionary to find the definitions to add into your list.

EXPLORATION

After you have read the article do some more research on the topic of autonomous cars. Take notes on your findings.

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Reflection on second language learning

Over this month you have read about learning a second language, listened to students express their opinions on the topic and discussed your own opinions as well. Now it’s time to write a reflection.

REFLECTION

Look back at the texts, the Exploration, Vocabulary, Comprehension, Images and Opinion tasks and use the information to write a reflection on the topic of learning a second language. Think about what you have learned, what was interesting, and what your overall response is.

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Discussion on learning a second language

For this discussion use the reading from this month Younger is not always better when it comes to learning a second language and the listening from this month Why should you learn a second language?

COMPREHENSION

According to the article:

  1. What is the ideal way for young children to learn a language?
  2. What skills do adolescents need to learn a new language?
  3. Someone who chooses to study a second language by themselves is usually in what age group?

IMAGES

Click on the links to look at these images relating to the topic of learning a second language.

The most spoken languages worldwide

These languages have the most speakers

Linguistic diversity around the world

OPINION

  1. Discuss the 3 images in detail.
  2. When did you first start learning a second language?
  3. What age do you think is best to start learning another language?
  4. Why did you start learning a second language?
  5. Do you think everyone should learn a second language?
  6. What do you think the advantages and disadvantages are of learning in a classroom compared to learning online?
Answers to the Comprehension Questions:
1. Living, learning and playing in a second language environment
2. Meta-cognitive skills
3. Adult

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Learning a Second Language

When is the right time to learn a second language? As a young child learning two languages at the same time, or as a teenager where it is a compulsory subject at school, or when you are an adult when you have the time and dedication to spend on learning a new language. What do you think?

Warren Midgley has written an article in The Conversation titled Younger is not always better when it comes to learning a second language.

EXPLORATION

To understand more about an article research is required to explore some of the ideas raised and who the author is. Read through these 3 explorations to give more insight into the article.

  1. Theory of universal grammar – this theory suggests that humans learn to speak their native language by imitating what they hear and repeating it. In other words, we are all genetically programmed to learn and understand our first language naturally.
  2. Critical period hypothesis – this hypothesis suggests that there is a particular period in the first few years of a human’s life where language is learned if there is sufficient exposure to the language. If this does not happen for someone within this critical period of time then learning that language is so much more difficult, particularly grammar.
  3. Warren Midgley is the author of this article. He works as an Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Southern Queensland. His fields of research are Education and Linguistics and his work has been published in many academic books and journals.

VOCABULARY

Now match these words from the article to the definitions.

WORD                                                              DEFINITION

1. second language

a) a language that is learned, not someone’s native language

2. first language b) wanting very much to have something that someone else has
3. fluency c) challenge an action or theory as not being correct
4. envy d) to have a strong effect on something
5. phenomenon e) the skills of understanding thought processes in learning
6. instinctive knowledge f) someone’s native language or mother tongue
7. exposure g) the age between being a child and an adult, usually the teenage years
8. posits h) being in the same place as someone else and interacting in person
9. contested i) a situation that exists
10. influential j) able to listen, read, speak and write coherently in a language
11. immersion k) learning online with people from all around the world
12. meta-cognitive skills l) following one after another in an order
13. adolescence m) having regular contact with something
14. consecutive n) a suggestion of something being true
15. face-to-face o) the level of ability someone has in a language
16. virtual conversation classes p) to be entirely involved in something
17. language proficiency q) a natural response or behavior
Answers: 1a, 2f, 3j, 4b, 5i, 6q, 7m, 8n, 9c, 10d, 11p, 12e, 13g, 14l, 15h, 16k, 17o.

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