Friday 27 March 2015

Houses

The Value of a Home .-
When  you're downtown in a larger city for whatever reason, chances are  you'll see at least a few raggedy-looking people with tousled hair and  vacant expressions on most of their faces. 
Some are unshaven men, but  there are women among them as well. Instinctively, you stay as  far away from them as possible; they might try to bum money from or, at  worst, assault you. Either way, you know they're "street people,"  homeless and most likely alcoholics.
But  what's it like to be in their shoes? Suppose, just for one day, you were  to trade places with one of them; you absorb their look, their  clothing, their actions - and their tenure.
To begin with, it doesn't  matter how you became that way; you're not happy with it either. With  wrinkled, dirty clothes that smell of sweat and dirt, you've been beaten  by life. Whatever events caused this is passé; you've been on the  streets for so long that you don't even remember what they were.
You  may awaken in the morning from a spot beneath an overpass, where you've  made your "bed" in an old water-heater box. Already, the sticky heat is  making your soiled clothes stick to oil-clogged pores of your skin.  After getting up and brushing off your clothes, you look for cigarette  remnants that others have thrown out of their cars. For all intents and  purposes, that's your "breakfast."
Slowly emerging from your little "camping  spot", you begin the trek  downtown. You shuffle slowly; your feet feel  like lead, and you're  weakened by the lack of desire as well as food.  When you finally arrive  at the busy streets, you try to stop someone  who looks friendly and ask  them for some spare change. To hide the fact  that you're a "bum"  (although your clothes obviously show it) and to,  hopefully, gain their  approval, you explain that you need it for food, a  phone call, or some  other apparently-innocent purpose. More often than  not, though, you  become discouraged as the person walks past quickly  without giving you a  cent. 

(Source:  www.associatedcontent.com. Photo:https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTeZpDZEHrmd218QXDFVyH0wiN3OhXEBFOcNpj_Q-hwt6qPwkijHYFYYDywAaipnRvqvRUUWDCnOuA2B9wI147fwtcySVuknl2wgAOwhB5C7Mz0RJHlhB0lLKGihlchqAxr2dNw81MQ5U/s1600/homeless1.jpg

** Listening comprehension practice: 
(First do the quizz and then check the main ideas in the extract of the transcript)





** Find below some  videos to practise listening comprehension.  
You can do the activity with the photocopy I will hand out next Monday after watching the first one:
 1. Container city


2. How clean is your house


3. Dome House; World's greenest homes




4. Grand designs




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