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No ball games here
Psychologists say that playing outside is extremely
important for the
1
(
DEVELOP
) of a child. However, a report has
shown that,
2
(
FORTUNATE
),
fewer children in the UK play in the streets
today than ever before. The report says that at
least half of the country’s five to ten-year-olds
never play outside. Children seem to have lost
their
3
(
ENJOY
)
of playing. Fifty years ago, this situation was
4
(
THINK
).
Both parents and children are responsible for
these
5
(
SURPRISE
)
statistics. On the one hand,
6
(
FRIGHTEN
) mums and dads believe that today’s
streets are
7
(
SAFE
). This is
because there are more cars on the roads and, in
many places, crime has got worse. On the other
hand, there are more activities to do inside these
days, such as watching TV, playing with games
consoles and using computers. Many children
8
(
HAPPY
) stay at home
doing these activities, instead of going outside to
play. Experts say that parents should give them
more
9
(
ENCOURAGE
)
to switch off their machines and go and call on
a friend.
To help find a
10
(
SOLVE
)
to this problem, the government has decided to
make the first Wednesday in August a national day
of play. ‘Playday’ is part of a campaign to highlight
the importance of play in children’s lives. It is also
a celebration of their right to play outside.
Cumulative review Units 1–6 81
Vocabulary
5
Complete the text with the correct form of the
words in brackets.
Writing
6
Think of a person who taught you an important
lesson. Write a letter to a magazine with a
description of the person. Include this information:
who the person is and how you know them
what the person is like
what you learned from them and how they taught you
why the person is special to you
Exam insight 3
Workbook page 98
An experiment
in education
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
The best programme onTV last night was the first
episode in a new series called
The Unteachables
.
1
It
’s
a kind of reality show set on a farm. But this farm is
not for animals, it’s for children. The farm has been
converted into a school for one class of difficult
students. And it is the job of one man to try and
teach these students something in the two weeks
they are there.
The class is a group of sixteen boys and girls, aged
thirteen and fourteen, who have all been expelled
from schools at least once. Their previous teachers
said that
2
they
were ‘unteachable’ and, judging
by their behaviour on the programme last night,
it isn’t hard to see why. The teacher who has to
deal with this class is forty-year-old Philip Beadle.
Before working in education, Mr Beadle played in
a rock band, but he gave up music eight years ago
to become a teacher. At his first school, he helped
his students to get the best English marks the
school had ever seen. As a result,
3
he
was made
Schoolteacher of theYear.
In the programme last night, we saw the students
have their first lesson with Mr Beadle. He started by
playing a game, where he and the students pointed at
each other and said something bad about the other
person.
4
This
might not sound very educational, but
he had the attention of all the students the whole
time. After that, Mr Beadle took his class outside for
an English lesson. At their previous schools, most
of these students refused to read in front of their
classmates, so Mr Beadle took them to a field to read
to some cows. Each student read an extract from a
Shakespeare play to
5
them
, and the students seemed
to enjoy
6
it
. In the next scene, Mr Beadle took them
to another field to teach them basic punctuation. He
did this through another game that involved jumping
around and shouting, ‘question mark!’ and ‘semi-
colon!’ Everyone seemed to enjoy this strange way
of learning and by the end of the show the students
were starting to accept their new teacher. Some of
them even said he was ‘all right’.
I really enjoyed
The Unteachables
because you could
see the teacher was having a positive effect on
the students. If, like me, you are fascinated by this
experiment in education, you’ll want to watch the
next episode on Channel Four nextWednesday at
7.30 p.m. Personally, I can’t wait!