activities

A BLAST FROM THE PAST by Robin Price

Part 11.
Work with a partner. Add five words to these lists about life in the past
300 years ago they didn't have: cars, hamburgers, antibiotics...
300 years ago they had: horses, feasts, sword fights...

2. Fill in the gaps using a word from the box. Do you agree with the statements?
a) disgusting
b) bored
c) amazing
d) terrified
e) charming
f) exciting
g) depressed
h) exhausting

1. Life is much more .......................... now than it was in the past.
2. Life was really tough. People woke up at sunrise and went to sleep feeling tired after a(n) .......................... day in the fields.
3. Kings and queens had a(n) .......................... life and enough money to buy anything.
4. Because they didn't understand science, many people were .......................... of things like thunder and lightening.
5. In the old days, life was better for women because men had to be ..........................
6. Nobody felt .......................... because stress didn't exist.
7. People must have been .......................... without televisions.

Part 2 Problems In The Past

1 You go riding in the woods. Your friend falls off his horse and breaks his leg. He is in terrible pain. Unfortunately, the year is 1680 and there are no hospitals, anaesthetics or telephones.

2 You live in a small country town. The year is 1750. You are bored. Unfortunately, the television has not been invented yet and there are no radios or video recorders. How can you make your evenings more exciting?

3 You are a highly intelligent person. You love studying and your family has enough money to send you to a good university. You would like to study to be a doctor. Unfortunately it is 1890 and women are not allowed at university.

Teaching instructions Level: Elementary + Time: 40 mins +
1. Give out copies of Part 1. In Exercise 1 students work in pairs, adding words to the lists.
2. When they've finished, elicit their words and write them in two lists on the board.
3. In Exercise 2, students fill in the gaps with adjectives. One adjective in the box is redundant. When they've finished, check the answers then revise the difference between ed/ ing adjectives.

The groups then discuss the sentences.

4. Divide the class into new, small groups and give them a copy of 'Problems In The Past'.
5. The groups decide what they would do in each situation, using the lists on the board for ideas.*
6. During feedback, compare the solutions of each group.
7. Split the whole class into three groups.
8. Each group thinks up two more 'problem situations' from the past and writes them down.
9. Now you're ready to play the game - group A explains a 'problem situation' and groups B and C have to discuss, then suggest, solutions *. Group A gives a point to the group with the best answer to their problem. Repeat the process until you've run out of problems.
10. Count up the points to find the winning group.

*Depending on level, students use the Past Simple to describe what they did, or modals and conditionals such as c/would have done to make suggestions about what they would have done.