ESL, activities connected with beginnings in life, literature, etc.

2. In pairs, have a look at the following images connected with the idea of
“BEGINNING”. Then, answer these questions:
1) What is the origin of the universe
according to science? And to the
Bible?
2) What is the origin of mankind?
3) What is the origin of languages?
4) What is the origin of the continents?

3. QUIZ. Choose the correct answer.
1) Greenpeace was originally
established to
a) Protect Canada´s wildlife
b) Protest against nuclear testing
c) Campaign for world peace
2) The 2006 FIFA World Cup kicked off
in
a) South Africa
b) Japan
c) Germany
3) Christopher Columbus set off on his
voyage of discovery to
a) Discover a new continent
b) Find another trade
c) Prove that the world was flat
4) SS Titanic, which sank on her
maiden voyage, was launched in…
a) 1911
b) 1931
c) 1951
5) In 1994 Nelson Mandela was
inaugurated as President of …
a) South Africa
b) Mexico
c) India
6) Democracy is said to have originated
in …
a) 18th-century America
b) Medieval England
c) Ancient Greece

4. "A trip for life, and for peace": that’s how
Irving Stowe, one of the co-founders of
Greenpeace, described the plan to sail a boat
to the Arctic Ocean to stop the testing of a
nuclear bomb. Irving didn’t know it then, but
the Greenpeace trip would last for decades.
And it would change the world.

5. In pairs, think of verbs connected
with BEGINNINGS. Example:
Begin, start…

6. ACTIVATE BRING ABOUT CONCEIVE EMBARK ON ENGENDER
FOUND GENERATE INCITE INITIATE INSPIRE
INSTIGATE LAUNCH INTO PRODUCE PROMPT PROVOKE
SET UP SET ABOUT STIMULATE SPAWN TRIGGER
Distribute this handout to your students.
You may want to play bingo in the form
of collocations or get students work on
collocations themselves

10. Speaking. Have a look at these
cartoons. Do you find them
funny? How are they related to
evolution?

11. Video: HOMER EVOLUTION
Have a look at the cartoon and
identify the different historical
stages they refer to
Watch the video. In pairs,
write down the different historical periods you can see.
If you could live in a
different historical
period, which one
would you choose
and why?

13. Think of situations in your life in which
you are likely to use some of these
expressions.

14. Speaking: The birth of a word
Words. What is your favorite word in the English language?
Why?
Speaking. Do you know what a language is? Can you
try to give a definition of it? Do you speak any other
languages apart from your mothers tongue? Say
some words in others languages.

15. Beautiful vowels
It took seven years to write Eunoia
Eunoia is the shortest word in English
containing all five vowels - and it means
"beautiful thinking". It is also the title of
Canadian poet Christian Bok's book of fiction
in which each chapter uses only one vowel.
Mr Bok believes his book proves that each
vowel has its own personality, and
demonstrates the flexibility of the English
language. Below are extracts from each
chapter.
from CHAPTER A - FOR HANS ARP
Hassan Abd al-Hassad, an Agha
Khan, basks at an ashram - a Taj
Mahal that has grand parks and grass
lawns, all as vast as parklands at
Alhambra and Valhalla. Hassan can,
at a handclap, call a vassal at hand
and ask that all staff plan a
bacchanal - a gala ball that has what
pagan charm small galas lack. Hassan
claps, and (tah-dah) an Arab lass at a
swank spa can draw a man's bath
and wash a man's back, as Arab lads
fawn and hang, athwart an altar,
amaranth garlands as fragrant as
attar - a balm that calms all angst. A
dwarf can flap a palm branch that
fans a fat maharajah. A naphtha
lamp can cast a calm warmth.

16. What´s the origin of the term “OK”?
 The term “OK” is probably America´s single most
successful export, but where does it come from?
The answer is that nobody really knows – OK?—
but here are some of the theories:
 1.- THE FRENCH CONNECTION:
 a) OK is an echo of the name Aux Cayes, the
name of a port in Haiti which exported rum to the
American colonies. This rum was apparently the
best available at the time, so its name may have
been used as a term of approval.
 b) General Lafayette came to the aid of the
American colonists during the War of
Independence, bringing hundreds of French
soldiers with him. Supposedly, they often made
dates with American girls “down at the docks” or
“aux cayes”.
 2.- THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR
 a) OK comes from the Orrins-Kendall
company, which furnished biscuits to the Union
Army in boxes prominently marked “OK”.
 b) OK means “zero killed” on a battle report
written by a military officer
 3.- THE NATIVE INDIAN ORIGIN
 President Woodrow Wilson (1912-20) is said to
have been fond of a Choctaw word meaning
“indeed” or “it is so” and he would write “okeh” on
papers.
 4.- ALL CORRECT
 Another president, Andrew Jackson (1829-27)
had no formal education and his opponents
thought he was semi-literate. They believed that
he wrote OK on documents as an abbreviation
of “all Korrect”. This tallies with the work of
lexicographers who have discovered that OK
made its first printed appearance in 1839. The
quotations taken from newspapers in Boston
and New York refer to it as a corruption of “all
Korrect”.
 5.- OLD KINDERHOOK
 Jackson´s succesor, Martin Van Buren, was
nicknamed “Old Kinderhook”after his home town
in upstate New York. When he ran for re-
election, his democrat supporters formed the OK
Club and 500 of them raided a meeting of the
rival Whig Party. The attack began when they
entered the room, repeating “OK” to each other,
as a signal to break up the meeting.

17. Origin of Word Google
• The word ‘Google’ has an interesting origin. First and foremost,
the name 'Google' is a play on the word 'Googol', which was
coined by Milton Sirotta, nine-year-old nephew of U.S.
mathematician Edward Kasner in 1938, to refer to the number
represented by 1 followed by one hundred zeros. Although
accepted to be coincidental, the name has also been interpreted
as being the result of the merging of the words ‘go’ and ‘ogle’
(Wikipedia, 2005). Furthermore, in British slang, to “throw a
googly�? means to ask a hard or unanswerable question
(Wikipedia, 2005).
•Today, the term ‘google’ is so widely used and recognised that it
has worked its way into modern dictionaries. The online
dictionary, http://www.dictionary.com, defines ‘google’ as a verb,
meaning ‘to search for information on the Internet’
(Dictionary.com, 2005).
Research Choose a word you
like & do research
on its origin

18. “From rags to riches”. What is the meaning of this expression?
Do you know of anyone who was very poor and then
became extremely rich?
Who are Sean Connery and Oprah Winfrey? What do they
have in common?

19. Review: Verb tenses
Have a look at the following sentences. Pay close attention to the underlined verb tenses. Why
are they used? What do they express?
TENSE Examples Uses
I always have cereal for breakfast
He lives in Algete
Water boils at 100 degrees Celsius
My plane leaves tomorrow at 9 am
She is now thinking of all these tenses
My little sister is always taking my clothes without
permission!
Yesterday I went to the movies
When I was a child I played with my toys
I was baking a cake when the phone rang
While she was playing the piano, the children were
playing in the garden
Have you ever seen that movie?
They have lived in this town for several years
I have just finished my homework
The universe has been expanding for over 13 billion years
When I arrived at the party, he had already left
We had already been waiting for over an hour, when they
informed us that the train had been cancelled

21. Guided writing in groups

23. Have a look at this inspirational quote. Why is it so powerful? Think of a situation in which you
could use this sentence.
You are going to watch a speech given
by the founder of Apple at an
American university.

24. Unit 1. Beginnings.
You are going to watch the speech made by Steve Jobs at Stanford University. Before watching
the video, discuss the following questions with your partner.
1) Who is Steve Jobs? What is he famous for?
While-watching. Pay close attention to the speech in which Steve Jobs talks about his many
failures and how he had to start again. Answer these questions:
1) Did Steve Jobs graduate from college?
2) How many stories are told by Jobs?
3) What´s the title of the first story?
4) What´s the connection between Steve´s parents and college?
5) Name some of the hardships Jobs had to undergo when he dropped out of college.
1) How did the calligraphy class help Job in his future job with MAC computers?
2) What is the second story about?
3) How old was Jobs when the first MAC was released?
4) What was the thing that dawned upon Jobs when he was fired from Apple?
5) What was the main personal change that took place in Steve´s life once he had been
fired?
6) What´s the third story about?
7) How did cancer affect Steve´s view of life?
1) Why did he use the motto “Stay hungry, stay foolish” to conclude his speech? What
does Steve Jobs want to convey by using these words?

25. Buy SmartDraw!- purchased copies print this
document without a watermark .
Visit www.smartdraw.com or call 1-800-768-3729.
MAKE vs. DO
Come up with collocations for
these 2 verbs

29. YOUR CHILDHOOD
Discussion
1.- It is said that children learn more in the first two
years of life than at any other stage. What kinds of
things have most children learnt by the age of two?
What do they learn themselves, and what are they
taught?
2.- Say what you think are the three most important
qualities of an ideal parent. Are there any other qualities
that you would like to add to your list?
3.- How would you rate the way your parents brought
you up?

30. That´s all I needed....a ball headed sister!
May I borrow him? We need
to get rid of some visitors.

31. What was going on the day you were born? Go to the
internet and search what happened. Have a
look at some newspapers in English.Take
some notes and exchange your notes with the
class.

32. Read the opening lines of some well-known literary works.
Try to identify the poem, novel, play, etc.
Call me Ishmael
Many years later, as he faced the firing squad,
Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember
that distant afternoon when his father took
him to discover ice.
Happy families are all alike; every unhappy
family is unhappy in its own way
ItwasabrightcolddayinApril,andtheclocks
werestrikingthirteen.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of
times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age
of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was
the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of
Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the
spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.
Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my
own life, or whether that station will be held
by anybody else, these pages must show

33. Somewhere in la Mancha, in a place whose
name I do not care to remember, a gentleman
lived not long ago, one of those who has a
lance and ancient shield on a shelf and keeps a
skinny nag and a greyhound for racing.
Iamasickman...Iamaspitefulman.

34. I, Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus
This-that-and-the-other (for I shall not trouble
you yet with all my titles) who was once, and
not so long ago either, known to my friends
and relatives and associates as “Claudius the
Idiot,” or “That Claudius,” or “Claudius the
Stammerer,” or “Clau-Clau-Claudius” or at best
as “Poor Uncle Claudius,” am now about to
write this strange history of my life; starting
from my earliest childhood and continuing
year by year until I reach the fateful point of
change where, some eight years ago, at the
age of fifty-one, I suddenly found myself
caught in what I may call the “golden
predicament” from which I have never since
become disentangled.
If I am out of my mind, it's all right with me,
thought Moses Herzog.

35. Proyect: How did all begin? You are going to create a scrapbook with images of your life.