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THE ARTICLEU.S. woman gives birth to eight babiesA woman in Southern California gave birth on January 27th to octuplets. It is only the second time in US history a mother has delivered eight babies. It is also only the second time ever for all octuplets to survive their first day. Doctors said the six tiny boys and two girls were all doing well and breathing on their own. They all arrived nine weeks early and ranged in weight from 0.68kg to 1.47kg. The mother and the team of doctors received a huge surprise at the end of the birth – an eighth baby. The mother believed she was going to have just seven babies (septuplets) before the birth. After the doctors delivered babies A to G, they discovered baby H. The mother asked the nurses: “Really? An eighth baby? How did we miss that baby?”
There are no pictures of the babies yet. The mother has asked the hospital to keep her identity a secret. She also does not want the media to find out whether or not she took fertility drugs before becoming pregnant. Dr Richard Paulson of the University of Southern California told reporters that the octuplets were probably because of fertility drugs. He also spoke about the risks involved in multiple births: “It's a risky decision to try to have all eight babies. I would not recommend it under any circumstances,” he said. He added that the chances of having eight children naturally, without drugs, were “unbelievably rare”. Twins occur in roughly 1 in 80 births; triplets in 1 in 6,400 births. The likelihood of octuplets being born is 1 in 20 trillion pregnancies.
WARM-UPS1. BABIES: Walk around the class and talk to other students about babies. Change partners often. After you finish, sit with your partner(s) and share your findings. 2. CHAT: In pairs / groups, decide which of these topics or words from the article are most interesting and which are most boring.
Have a chat about the topics you liked. Change topics and partners frequently. 3. OCTUPLETS: What do parents of octuplets need to think about? What advice would you give? Complete the table below. Change partners and share what you wrote.
4. FERTILITY DRUGS: Students A strongly believe fertility drugs should not be allowed; Students B strongly believe fertility drugs are necessary. Change partners again and talk about your conversations. 5. MULTIPLE BIRTHS: Is it better to have one baby, twins, triplets, quadruplets, quintuplets…? With your partner(s), talk about the advantages and disadvantages of the following. Change partners and talk about your conversations.
6. PREGNANCY: Spend one minute writing down all of the different words you associate with the word ‘pregnancy’. Share your words with your partner(s) and talk about them. Together, put the words into different categories. BEFORE READING / LISTENING1. TRUE / FALSE: Look at the article’s headline and guess whether these sentences are true (T) or false (F):
2. SYNONYM MATCH: Match the following synonyms from the article:
3. PHRASE MATCH: Match the following phrases from the article (sometimes more than one. combination is possible):
WHILE READING / LISTENINGGAP FILL: Put the words into the gaps in the text.
LISTENING: Listen and fill in the spaces.A woman in Southern California _____________ January 27th to octuplets. It is only the second time in US history a mother has delivered eight babies. _____________ the second time ever for all octuplets to survive their first day. Doctors said _____________ boys and two girls were all doing well and breathing on their own. They all arrived nine weeks early and __________________ 0.68kg to 1.47kg. The mother and the team of doctors received a huge surprise at the end of the birth – an eighth baby. The mother believed she was going _____________ seven babies (septuplets) before the birth. After the doctors delivered babies A to G, they discovered baby H. The mother asked the nurses: “Really? An eighth baby? How ________________ baby?” There are no pictures of the babies yet. The mother has asked the hospital to keep her ________________. She also does not want the media to find out whether _______________ fertility drugs before becoming pregnant. Dr Richard Paulson of the University of Southern California told reporters that the octuplets were probably because of fertility drugs. He _____________ the risks involved in multiple births: “It's a risky decision to try to have all eight babies. I would not recommend _____________ circumstances,” he said. He added that the chances of having eight children naturally, without drugs, were “unbelievably rare”. Twins _____________ 1 in 80 births; triplets in 1 in 6,400 births. The likelihood of octuplets being born is _____________ pregnancies. AFTER READING / LISTENING1. WORD SEARCH: Look in your dictionaries / computer to find collocates, other meanings, information, synonyms … for the words ‘give’ and ‘birth’.
2. ARTICLE QUESTIONS: Look back at the article and write down some questions you would like to ask the class about the text.
3. GAP FILL: In pairs / groups, compare your answers to this exercise. Check your answers. Talk about the words from the activity. Were they new, interesting, worth learning…? 4. VOCABULARY: Circle any words you do not understand. In groups, pool unknown words and use dictionaries to find their meanings. 5. TEST EACH OTHER: Look at the words below. With your partner, try to recall how they were used in the text:
STUDENT BABIES SURVEYWrite five GOOD questions about babies in the table. Do this in pairs. Each student must write the questions on his / her own paper. When you have finished, interview other students. Write down their answers.
BABIES DISCUSSIONSTUDENT A’s QUESTIONS (Do not show these to student B)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------- STUDENT B’s QUESTIONS (Do not show these to student A)
LANGUAGEA woman in Southern California gave (1) ____ on January 27th to octuplets. It is only the second time in US history a mother has delivered eight babies. It is also only the second time ever for all octuplets to (2) ____ their first day. Doctors said the six tiny boys and two girls were all doing well and (3) ____ on their own. They all arrived nine weeks early and ranged in weight from 0.68kg to 1.47kg. The mother and the team of doctors received a huge (4) ____ at the end of the birth – an eighth baby. The mother believed she was going to have just seven babies (septuplets) (5) ____ the birth. After the doctors delivered babies A to G, they discovered baby H. The mother asked the nurses: “Really? An eighth baby? How did we (6) ____ that baby?” There are no pictures of the babies yet. The mother has asked the hospital to keep her (7) ____ a secret. She also does not want the media to find (8) ____ whether or not she took fertility drugs before becoming pregnant. Dr Richard Paulson of the University of Southern California told reporters that the octuplets were (9) ____ because of fertility drugs. He also spoke about the risks involved in multiple births: “It's a risky decision to try to have all eight babies. I would not recommend it (10) ____ any circumstances,” he said. He added that the (11) ____ of having eight children naturally, without drugs, were “unbelievably rare”. Twins occur in roughly 1 in 80 births; triplets in 1 in 6,400 births. The (12) ____ of octuplets being born is 1 in 20 trillion pregnancies. Put the correct words from the table below in the above article.
WRITING:Write about babies for 10 minutes. Correct your partner’s paper. _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ HOMEWORK1. VOCABULARY EXTENSION: Choose several of the words from the text. Use a dictionary or Google’s search field (or another search engine) to build up more associations / collocations of each word. 2. INTERNET: Search the Internet and find out more about multiple births. Share what you discover with your partner(s) in the next lesson. 3. OCTUPLETS: Make a poster about the things octuplets will need throughout their lives. Show your work to your classmates in the next lesson. Did you all have similar things? 4. MULTIPLE BIRTHS: Write a magazine article about a couple who has octuplets. What are their joys and challenges? Read what you wrote to your classmates in the next lesson. Write down any new words and expressions you hear from your partner(s). 5. ONE OF EIGHT: Write an imaginary conversation between two of the octuplets. One of them likes being one of eight; the other would prefer to be an only child. Read what you wrote to your classmates in the next lesson. Write down any new words and expressions you hear from your partner(s). Role play your conversation in front of the class. 6. LETTER: Write a letter to the mother of the eight babies. Ask her three questions about having octuplets. Give her three suggestions on what she should do to bring them up. Read your letter to your partner(s) in your next lesson. Your partner(s) will answer your questions. ANSWERSTRUE / FALSE:
SYNONYM MATCH:
PHRASE MATCH:
GAP FILL: U.S. woman gives birth to eight babiesA woman in Southern California gave birth on January 27th to octuplets. It is only the second time in US history a mother has delivered eight babies. It is also only the second time ever for all octuplets to survive their first day. Doctors said the six tiny boys and two girls were all doing well and breathing on their own. They all arrived nine weeks early and ranged in weight from 0.68kg to 1.47kg. The mother and the team of doctors received a huge surprise at the end of the birth – an eighth baby. The mother believed she was going to have just seven babies (septuplets) before the birth. After the doctors delivered babies A to G, they discovered baby H. The mother asked the nurses: “Really? An eighth baby? How did we miss that baby?” There are no pictures of the babies yet. The mother has asked the hospital to keep her identity a secret. She also does not want the media to find out whether or not she took fertility drugs before becoming pregnant. Dr Richard Paulson of the University of Southern California told reporters that the octuplets were probably because of fertility drugs. He also spoke about the risks involved in multiple births: “It's a risky decision to try to have all eight babies. I would not recommend it under any circumstances,” he said. He added that the chances of having eight children naturally, without drugs, were “unbelievably rare”. Twins occur in roughly 1 in 80 births; triplets in 1 in 6,400 births. The likelihood of octuplets being born is 1 in 20 trillion pregnancies. LANGUAGE WORK
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