Fostering Friendships - Enhancing Social Bonds in the Classroom
3.2 Free Time
1. Unit 3.2
Free time
1. Pronunciation: Homophones
a) Homophones are words with the same pronunciation and different meaning and/or
spellings. Look at these sentences. Which words are homophones?
- The bulls are very weak at the end of the spectacle.
- Every week thousands of people watch bullfights.
b) Look at the homophones. Listen and decide which word of each pair is used.
pair / pear - stair / stare - mail / male - peace / piece - heal / heel - sail / sale
2. Word builder: Giving opinion and (dis) agreeing
a. Look at the list of phrases and put them in the most suitable category.
1. I think… 2. You must be joking! 3. In my
opinion… 4. I agree. 5. Absolutely! 6. If you ask
me… 7. I disagree. 8. You’re wrong! 9. You’re
right! 10. Nonsense! 11. Do you really think so?
12. I’m not sure about that! 13. Are you serious?
14. I don’t think so.
Agree Disagree Giving an opinion Strongly agree Strongly disagree
b. Speaking: What do you think about dancing? Do you see it just as a fun activity? Or do
you believe it could have medicinal properties? Discuss your opinions with your
partners. Practice the expressions given!
c. Reading: Let’s read the following article to find out what’s behind “dancing”
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2. The health benefits of dancing
If you secretly sashay across your living room when you're home alone or long to cha-cha
with your significant other, you're in luck. Not only is dancing an exceptional way to let loose
and have fun, but it also provides some terrific benefits for your health. In fact, Mayo Clinic
researchers reported that social dancing helps to reduce stress, increase energy, improve
strength and increase muscle tone and coordination. Besides, The National Heart, Lung and
Blood Institute says that dancing can lower your risk of coronary heart disease, decrease
blood pressure, help you manage your weight and strengthen the bones of your legs and hips.
Dancing is a unique form of exercise because it provides the heart-healthy benefits of an
aerobic exercise while also allowing you to engage in a social activity. This is especially
stimulating to the mind, and a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine even
found dancing can reduce the risk of Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia in the
elderly. In this study, participants over the age of 75 who engaged in dancing once a week had
a 7 percent lower risk of dementia compared to those who did not. Those who engaged in
these activities at least 11 days a month had a 63 percent lower risk!
But not only the physical aspect of dancing increases blood flow to the brain, but also the
social aspect of the activity leads to less stress, depression and loneliness. Further, dancing
requires memorizing steps and working with a partner, both of which provide mental
challenges that are crucial for brain health.
How Good of a Workout is Dancing, Really?
The amount of benefit you get from dancing depends on, like most exercises, the type
of dancing you're doing, how strenuous it is, the duration and your skill level.
Says exercise physiologist Catherine Cram, MS, of Comprehensive Fitness Consulting in
Middleton, Wisconsin, quot;Dancing is a weight-bearing activity, which builds bones. It's also
quot;wonderfulquot; for your upper body and strength.quot; Plus, dancing requires using muscles that you
may not even know you had!
Physical benefits aside, dancing has a way of brightening up a person's day, says
ballroom owner and operator Karen Tebeau. quot;A lot of times, when people come into the studio,
it's because there's been a change in their life: a divorce or they've been through a period of
depression. They (continue) coming in, and you see a big change. After a while, they're walking
in with a sunny expression. You know it's the dancing that's doing that,quot; she says.
3. Giving instructions
a. Look at the following ways of giving and asking for instructions:
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3. Asking for Instructions
How do you (do this)? / How do I . . . ? / What is the best way to . . . ? / How do I go about
it? / What do you suggest? / How do you suggest I proceed? / What is the first step?
Giving Instructions
• Sequencing
First, (you) . . . / Then, (you) . . . / Next, (you) . . . / Lastly, (you) . . .
• Starting out
Before you begin, (you should . . .) / The first thing you do is . . . . / I would start by . . .
The best place to begin is . . . / To begin with,
• Continuing
After that, / The next step is to . . . / The next thing you do is . . . / Once you've done
ext
that, / then . . . / When you finish that, then . . .
• Finishing
The last step is . . . / The last thing you do is . . . /At the end, / When you've finished,
When you've completed all the steps,
b. Organize appropriately the following pictures (with their instructions) about how
to make pizza.
1. Then, knead the 2. Lastly, remove the
dough on a lightly prebaked crust from the oven.
floured surface until Add your toppings, and return
it's smooth and the pizza to the middle oven
elastic. rack to bake
4. First of all, gather the
3. After that, roll the equipment: two rimless
dough into a 12-inch baking sheets, a rolling pin,
circle. a spatula, a pizza wheel,
and a large knife.
5. The next step is to 6. Then, holding the baking
drape the dough over the sheet at about a 45-degree
rolling pin to transfer it to angle and using a spatula to
a baking sheet sprinkled guide it, slide the dough
with cornmeal. onto the preheated sheet.
7. Once you’ve done that,
crimp the edges of the
dough to form a rim to
corral the toppings on
the surface of the pizza.
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4. 4. Adverbials and adverbs
In grammar an adverbial is a word (an adverb) or a group of words (an adverbial phrase or
an adverbial clause) that modifies or tells us something about the sentence or the verb. The
word adverbial is also used as an adjective, meaning 'having the same function as an adverb'.
Look at the example below:
- Danielle speaks fluently. (Telling us more about the verb)
Adverbials operate at sentence level as sentence elements, as in the example below:
- Lorna ate breakfast yesterday morning. (SUBJECT + VERB + OBJECT + ADVERBIAL)
In every sentence pattern, the adverbial is a clause element that tells where, when, why,
or how. There can be more than one adverbial in a sentence. In addition, the same adverbial
can be moved to different positions in a sentence.
Adverbials most commonly take the form of adverbs, adverb phrases, temporal noun
phrases or prepositional phrases. Examples:
- Jane answered immediately (Adverb)
- Jane answered in English (Prepositional phrase)
- Jane answered this morning (Noun phrase)
- Jane answered in English because he had a foreign visitor (Adverbial clause)
Adverbs are single words (examples: badly, often). Adverbials are words, phrases, or
clauses that act like adverbs (very often, several times). In other words, quot;adverbsquot; fall under
the larger category of quot;adverbials.quot; Both of them describe when (time), how (manner), how
often (frequency), how much (degree) or where (place) things happen. Example: She usually
sings well, but the last time I saw her she sang delightfully in the church next door.
Let’s practice: Read the following text, which contains eleven adverbs or adverbials.
Underline them and write them in the table below. The first three have been done for you.
The first time I saw her was in the bar downstairs. She was singing in a band.
She sang extraordinarily, beautifully, but it wasn’t her voice that attracted me
to her. It was her green eyes, green as the sea. She had nowhere to live so she
moved into my place and we loved each other madly that winter. But as the time
wore on we began to argue constantly. I often say to myself that we didn’t
always love well, but we did love truly.
Frequency Time Manner Degree Place
First time Extraordinarily Downstairs
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