Funny professor

Mr Jones woke early one morning, before the sun had risen. It was a beautiful morning, so he went to the window and looked out. He was surprised to see a neatly dressed, middle-aged professor, who worked in the university just up the road from Mr Jones’s house, coming from the direction of the town. He had grey hair and thick glasses, and was carrying an umbrella, a morning newspaper and a bag. Mr Jones thought that he must have arrived by the night train and decided to walk to the university instead of taking a taxi.

Mr Jones had a big tree in his garden, and the children had tied a long rope to one of its branches, so that they could swing on it.

Mr Jones was surprised to see the professor stop when he saw the rope, and look carefully up and down the road. When he saw that there was nobody in sight, he stepped into the garden (there was no fence), put his umbrella, newspaper, bag and hat neatly on the grass and took hold of the rope. He pulled it hard to see whether it was strong enough to take his weight, then ran as fast as he could and swung into the air on the end of the rope, his grey hair blowing all around his face. Backwards and forwards he swung, occasionally taking a few more running steps on the grass when the rope began to swing too slowly for him.

At last the professor stopped, straightened his tie, combed his hair carefully, put on his hat, picked up his umbrella, newspaper and bag, and continued on his way to the university, looking as quiet and correct and respectable as one would expect a professor to be.

Questions:

1. Answer the following questions using your own words but taking into account the

information in the text.

a. When Mr Jones looked out of the window, what did he see?

b. What had happened to the tree that Mr Jones had in the garden?

2. Are the following statements true or false? Identify the part of the text that

supports your answer by copying the exact words.

a. When Mr Jones woke up, it was still dark:

b. Mr Jones’s garden was protected by a fence:

c. The professor was carrying an umbrella because it was raining:

3. Choose a, b or c in each question below. Only one choice is correct.

1. The university was

a. near Mr Jones’s house.

b. far from Mr Jones’s house.

c. next to Mr Jones’s house.

2. The professor stopped by the rope because

a. he thought that it was dangerous for the children.

b. he wanted to untie it from the tree.

c. he wanted to play with it.

3. The professor pulled the rope because he wanted to check that

a. it was safely tied to the tree.

b. it could hold him before swinging on it.

c. he was sure he would break it.

Office hours: Read the text and do the tasks a, b, c, d “Never give up” [1. 46-47]

References

Main literature

1. Clive Oxenden and Christina Latham-Koenig “New English File”. Intermediate level Student’s book. Oxford. 2010.

2. Clive Oxenden and Christina Latham-Koenig “New English File”. Intermediate Work book. Oxford, 2010.

Additional literature

3. John and Liz Soars New Headway. Intermediate level. Student’s book. Oxford, 2009.

4. John and Liz Soars New Headway. Intermediate level. Work book. Oxford, 2009.

5. Audio discs of “New Headway” for Intermediate level, Disc-1,2.

6. “Objective” by Michael Black, Wendy Shar. Intermediate.Cambridge University Press, 2010

Kazakh Leading Academy of Architecture and Civil Engineering Hand out English as a Foreign Language Department of General Humanitarian Training 2 credits Academic year the 2012-2013 Intermediate level The 3rd term Practical lesson 9 Lexical theme: Books and literature. Grammar: Can, could, be able to (ability and possibility) Assistant professor Sariyeva Aida Kamzaevna