Phonetic exercises
1. Pronounce the following words paying attention to the pronunciation of the stressed vowels
/æ/ ally /ai/, ancestor, anteater, anthem, platypus, fascinating, climatic, kangaroo, statute
/ei/ amazing, claim, acacia
/e/ tremendous, hemisphere, desert, temperate, lieutenant,
/Ʌ/ southern, discovery, currency
/ai/ climate, island
/Eə/ area, rare
/i:/ emu /ju:/
/)/ origin, aborigine, province, wattle, commonwealth
/a:/ grassland, harbor, chart, koala
/ju:/ marsupial
/i/ echidna, impetus, eucalyptus /ju:/
2. You will meet a lot of new proper names. Try to find out how they are pronounced. Look for the transcription in the dictionary
Adelaide Antarctica Arafura Sea Arthur Phillip
Australia Ayers Rock Barossa Valley Bondi Beach
Brisbane Canberra Coogee Gallipoli
Great Barrier Reef Hamersley Range Hobart Indian Ocean
Lake Eyre Mawson’s Peak Melbourne Mount Kosciusko
Murray Musgrave Range Nullabor Plain Pacific Ocean
Perth Queensland Southern Cross Sturt
Sydney Tamany Tasmania Timor Sea
Twelve Apostles Uluru Van Diemen’s Land
Lexical exercises
Exercise 1.
Exercise 2.
Text 1
Watch the presentation 1 about Australia. Prepare reading and translation of the slides.
Answer the questions, find geographical objects on the map and show them to the group.
1. By whom was Australia discovered and when did it happen?
2. What is the official name of Australia?
3. What landscape is typical of Australia?
4. Name the greatest rivers of Australia.
5. What animals live in Australia?
6. Name big cities of Australia.
7. What is the capital of Australia?
8. Why is Australia called “the upside down of the world”?
9. What oceans and seas wash the continent?
10. Describe the flag of Australia.
11. Name the states and the territories of Australia and their capitals. Show them on the map too.
12. Name the climatic regions of the continent. Compare the seasons in Australia with those in Russia (for the NS institute).
13. What is Australia’s highest point?
Text 2
Watch the presentation 2 “Australia’s Unique History”, while watching try to find answers to the questions
When did first population appear in Australia and how did them come there?
What was their main occupation?
What kind of culture did they have?
When did James Cook charted the eastern coast of Australia?
Who charted the western and northern coastline of Australia and how did they call this territory?
How did Cook call the eastern part of Australia and what was established there?
Why do Australians celebrate Australia Day on January 26?
How is Van Diemen's Land called now?
What colonies were created in the middle of the 19th century?
When was Perth founded?
When was Northern Territory founded?
Why was South Australia founded as “free territory”?
What was the largest penal colony of Australia?
What were the reasons of indigenous population decrease?
What is the History Wars?
When did a Golden Rush begin?
What happened in Australia between 1855 and 1890?
What duties were left to the Control Office in London?
When was the Commonwealth of Australia born?
Why was the Capital Territory formed?
What is ANZAC?
Why is ANZAC day celebrated in Australia?
Why did Australia become a formal military ally of the US?
Where did most immigrants come to Australia after World War II and after 1970?
What was the result of vast immigration?
When did Australia become independent in government from Great Britain?
Why is history of Australia unique?
Text 3
Read the text and do the tasks:
Show all the mentioned mountains on the map
Tell what facts you have got to know about Uluru
Tell what you have got to know about Western Plateau and Central Lowland
Prove that eucalyptus is used in different ways in Australia
It is a little known fact that the highest point on Australian Territory is actually Mawson's Peak. Located on Heard Island, Mawson's Peak is 2745 metres high, and forms the summit of an active volcano called Big Ben. Heard Island is well south of the Australian continent approaching the coast of Antarctica in the Southern Ocean.
The highest mountains on the Australian mainland are in an area known as the Snowy Mountains in New South Wales, forming part of the Great Dividing Range which separates the central lowlands from the eastern highlands. The Great Dividing Range spans Victoria to the south and runs through New South Wales and Queensland. These are the mountains to the right of the map.
The small long and narrow Mountain range in South Australia is called the Flinders Ranges which are visible at the bottom middle of the map.
The north of Western Australia contains some isolated ranges such as the King Leopold and Hamersley ranges.
Central Australia is relatively flat except for several eroded mountain chains, such as the Macdonnell Ranges in the southern part of the Northern Territory and the Musgrave Ranges and Stuart Range in the northern part of South Australia.
The Island state of Tasmania contains rugged mountains and is geologically part of the Great Dividing Range in the mainland.
Australia is also the world's flattest and driest landmass after the Antarctica. The vast interior of Australia is called the Outback, which consists mainly of desert plains. The fertile eastern coastal plains are separated from the Outback by the Great Dividing Range. Some ski fields are located in the Great Dividing Range around the Victoria and New South Wales border.
The Outback is a hot and inhospitable place, but is home to the Jackaroo (cowboy), a Crocodile Dundee type character who is as rugged as the landscape he lives in.
The term 'Outback' describes the arid inland areas of Australia, however the term more accurately describes a feeling rather than a sharply marked out region.
The landscape consists of huge deserts such as the Gibson, the Great Sandy, the Great Victoria, Tanami and the Nullabor Plain. Australia's desert areas are the biggest in the world outside the Sahara.
Punululu
The Olgas
Uluru
The world's largest monolith stuns people with its majesty. Yet the sense of mystery of Uluru (or Ayers Rock) is greater still. There are many ways to enjoy this unique site, located 450 kilometres from Alice Springs in Central Australia. Uluru is 3.6 kilometres long, 2 kilometres wide, 348 metres high and 9.4 kilometres in circumference. The rock is composed of feldspar-rich sandstone arkose, which means that it changes colour significantly in different light, particularly at sunrise and sunset. Uluru belongs to the Anangu Aboriginal people, for whom it holds a special place in creation stories and lore
Ayers Rock
Dust Storm
Western Plateau
Australia’s Western Plateau begins in the west and covers most of Australia. The center of the Western Plateau is very dry. It is the driest part of Australia. Few people live there. This dry land is called Australia’s outback.
Deserts get less than 10 inches (25 cm) of rain each year. Australia’s Western Plateau has three main deserts:
• Great Sandy Desert
• Gibson Desert
• Great Victoria Desert
Australia’s desert land is not good for farming. But wild plants can grow there. Two desert flowers are the kangaroo paw and the sturt desert pea. They bloom after desert rains.
Sturt desert pea
Kangaroo paw
Central Lowlands
East of the Western Plateau are the Central Lowlands. The Central Lowlands and the Western Plateau are mostly flat. In fact, Australia is the flattest continent. The lowest land of Australia is in the Central Lowlands. Australia’s lowest point is Lake Eyre. Lake Eyre is not always full of water. Many of Australia’s lakes stay dry for years.
The Central Lowlands have flat, grassy land. This grassy land is good for raising sheep and cattle. But this land is too dry for farming.
A cattle ranch in Australia
Australia is famous for its hardwood eucalyptus trees. Eucalyptus trees are sometimes called gum trees. People use these hardwood trees to build houses and furniture. Eucalyptus oil is
important, too. It is used in medicine, soap, and cleaning supplies.
Text 4
Look through the text and pictures and speak about peculiarities of Australia mentioned in this text
Australia has animals unlike any others in the world. One is the duck-billed platypus. This animal has a beak like a duck’s. But it is not a bird. The duck-billed platypus also has webbed feet. It lives in and near water.
Australia is famous for marsupial animals. Female marsupials carry their babies in a special pouch. Koalas, wombats, and kangaroos are marsupials.
Australia has many kinds of uncommon birds. There are kookaburras, colorful parrots, and emus. Emus are the second largest birds in the world. They can grow to become six feet (two m) tall. Emus cannot fly. But they can run as fast as 30 mph (48 kph).
Another strange Australian animal is the echidna. It has spines on most of its body. Another name for the echidna is spiny anteater. They eat ants and termites.
The dingo is one of Australia's wild animals. It is a wild dog which kills other animals at night. It fills the silent night air with its terrible cries. It attacks and kills sheep, which are much easier to kill than kangaroos or other wild animals. To protect the sheep dingoes must be killed, especially in some parts of the country. In some districts much money is spent on hunting and killing them. Australian hunters love to tell stories of how they killed cunning old dingoes.
In colour it is reddish brown or yellow. Its feet and the end of its tail are whitish. Scientists think that it was once a pet dog of the aborigines, but then it went wild.
Dingoes have been kept as pets many times. When they are young, they are playful and amusing like any young dog. But the grown dingo can always run away and then go wild. They kill people's hens and chickens, even cats and small dogs. So the keeping of pet dingoes is not
allowed in most parts of Australia
.
Thousands of people visit Australia’s Great Barrier Reef each year. It is the world’s largest coral reef. It is off Australia’s northeast coast. This reef has more than 1,200 miles (1,931 km) of coral. The Great Barrier Reef is made of living and dead coral. Coral are sea animals. The reef’s living coral is colorful and very beautiful.
The Twelve Apostles are another major attraction of the Australian coastline. They are located along the coastline of Victoria, near Port Campbell. The Twelve Apostles are rock formations which rise out of the ocean and stand up to 100m above sea level.
Best viewed from the scenic Great Ocean Road, the Twelve Apostles were formed over thousands of years by the action of the sea. A 200-metre cliff-top boardwalk reaches the main viewing platform and Castle Rock, which provides stunning views of the wild coastline.
Text 5