2. What are the main points? Do the tasks; you can look back at the stories.

1. First story: here is a summary of the first story, with mistakes. Copy it, correcting the mistakes.

Peter Elstob is an American who was approached by a stranger outside a sports shop. The man wanted advice on where to buy a tennis racket. Then the man showed Elstob a letter that had been received by some friends in America; the friends wanted him to find out who had written it. The letter was from Elstob.

2. Second story: put one or more words in each gap.

Graham Lord traveled to …1… on business. He went with a …2… , ‘Jules’ Lewis, and changed …3… to stay at Mr. Lewis’s …4… . An …5… of Jules Lewis, also called Lewis, was also staying at …6… . Graham Lord and the schoolfriend’s …7… (whose nickname was …8… ) fell in …9… , and they are still …10… .

3. Third story: finish the summary.

Mrs. May Badman often took the train… One morning when the train came in she began… When the train arrived… The people in Mrs. Badman’s carriage…, but…

c) Guessing words from context. Do the tasks for each story.

1. First story: look back at the text, and match the words and expressions in the first column with their meanings in the second column. (There are too many meanings).

a. encounter 1. accidental meeting

b. over the top 2. idea about the cause of something

c. shiver 3. nervous laughter at something that

is not really funny

d. suspicion 4. shaking that happens when someone

is afraid or shocked

5. too cheap for the situation

6. too expensive for the situation

2. Second story: find words or expressions in the second story that seem to mean:

a. happened by chance to be b. surprising

3. Third story: what do you think these words and expressions mean in the story?

sticks out, carriage, buffers, shaken

4. All the stories: write down a list of five words that you would like to look up in the dictionary. Show your list to a partner, and discuss your reasons for choosing the words you did. Look the words up after class.

XI. A) Read these five texts and answer the questions given below: Chance Encounters

There can be few stories as enigmatic as the following.

Erskine Lawrence Ebbin was knocked off his

moped by a taxi and killed in Hamilton, Bermuda. It was the same taxi with the same driver, carrying the same passenger, that killed his brother Neville in July the previous year. Both brothers were 17 when they died, and had been riding the same moped in the same street. Ah! But history never quite repeats itself – the time of both accidents differed by (only) 50 minutes.

But perhaps the most remarkable tale of a chance

encounter is that of young Roger Lausier. When he was four years old he stayed away from his mother along the beach at Salem, Massachusetts. He paddled for a while and then got caught by a powerful undercurrent, and would have drowned but for a woman who brought him ashore and revived him. The rescuer refused all rewards, and left wishing the infant luck. Nine years later, Roger was a strong swimmer and was tracking a shoal of bluefish when he heard a woman scream: ‘My husband is drowning! My husband is drowning!’ Roger saw that a heavily-built man had fallen from his powerboat and was floundering helplessly. He paddled his inflated raft over in time to clutch the drowning man’s hand, and kept him afloat until another boat got to them, and they went safely ashore. In the hospital the grateful woman kissed the boy: ‘I’m Alice Blaise, and I can’t thank you enough for saving my Bob.’ Roger had no idea who Mrs. Blaise was until the story came out during a presentation to him by the Massachusetts Humane Society. He had saved the husband of the woman who had saved him on the same beach nine years previously.

( from ‘The Best of Fortean Times’)