Материал: UPSTREAM

Learn how to ...

ñmake houses safe for children

ñdescribe a room/a house

ñrequest services

ñexpress sympathy

ñdecide on a house

ñdescribe people

ñexpress feelings

ñexpress your opinion

ñspread the news

ñintroduce people

Practise ...

ñpresent tenses

ñadverbs of frequency

ñprepositions of place

ñlinkers

ñstate verbs

ñpast tenses

ñused to/would

Phrasal verbs

ñbreak

ñbring

ñcarry

ñcome

Write ...

ñan advertisement for a house

ñan informal letter describing a house for rent

ña description of a person

ña narrative

Lead-in

1The title above is taken from an English proverb. What do you think it means?

C

A

B

2a. Which of the houses in the pictures:

has: five storeys and a house on top; a fibreglass shark; brick walls; a thatched roof; a chimney; a rock on the roof; wooden stairs up to the front door; stone walls; a pitched roof; a tiled roof?

is: built underground; a castle; built on stilts?

b. Use the adjectives to describe each house. Give reasons.

House A is economical to maintain because it doesn’t cost very much to heat and cool.

c. Listen and match the houses to the countries.

The house in picture A is a hut on stilts. It is located in Zimbabwe.

It has got a thatched roof and wooden stairs up to the front door.

It’s cramped but it’s probably quite airy.

e.Which house would you/wouldn’t you like to live in? Give reasons.

I’dliketoliveinthehutonstiltsbecauseitlooksveryattractivetome.

Iwouldn’tliketoliveintherockhousebecauseitmustgetverycold.

How would you like to live in a castle, a tree house or even underground? This might not be as unusual as you think. It seems that these days more and more people want to live somewhere special and

5out of the ordinary, and if they can’t buy what they

want they are quite prepared to build it from scratch.

For John Mew and his wife Josephine their home really is their castle. They have built their own 10 English castle in the Sussex countryside. The building is brand new with all the luxuries you would expect from a house that cost more than í350,000 to build. However, when you first see it from the outside it would be easy to think that you are looking

15 at an ancient monument. The building has a lot of the features of a traditional castle, including a keep, a moat and a drawbridge. “My choice of house is somewhat eccentric and building it was very hard work, but we’ve got the perfect place to live,” Mew

20says. Although some would say that the building is impractical and may be cold in harsh British winters,

he certainly has got a unique and spacious home.

If you don’t look carefully, you might not even see the home that Jonathan Ridley-Jones and Shanon

25Ridd built at all! That’s because the house is a converted underground water tank. The only thing that can be seen from the surface is a door leading into the hillside. “We’ve never wanted to live in an

ordinary house,” Shanon says. “Living below ground

30means that our home is quiet and very cosy – none of the usual draughts. It doesn’t damage the local surroundings and has very low fuel bills. Some of our friends find it dark and feel shut in when they first visit, but they soon get used to it!”

If an underground home doesn’t appeal to you, 35 how about living in the tree tops? Dan Garner, a tree surgeon from Gloucestershire, certainly thinks that this is the way to go up in the world.

“When our family became short of space at home our solution was to build a luxury tree house in the 40 garden. The tree house is built into a spruce tree six metres above the ground. It has one main room, a bedroom and a balcony running around two sides.” Garner is so happy with this practical extension to his home that he thinks he can convince more 45 people of the benefits of living in the trees. He wants to set up his own enterprise making more of the deluxe tree dwellings, saying, “Tree houses are airy, secure and comfortable and the only disadvantage is that they might not be suitable for people who 50 suffer from hay fever or a fear of heights!”

Even people who live in more ordinary settings sometimes can’t resist doing something to make them stand out from the crowd. One extreme example of this is Bill Heines’ house in Headington, 55 Oxfordshire. Until one morning in 1986, his house looked much like all the others in his street, when suddenly overnight a 7.5 m long fibreglass shark appeared to have crashed through the roof. The shark was a sculpture by local artist John Buckley. 60 At first some people complained that it might be dangerous or that it spoilt the look of the neighbourhood, but engineers checked that the sculpture was safe and the ‘Headington shark’ has become a well-known and popular landmark. It 65 seems that no matter where you live, you can always do something to make sure your house says something about who you are.

Dwellings and Appliances

5a. Go through the table and look up the words you don’t know in your dictionary.

b. Listen and underline the words that best describe Ann’s house. Circle the ones which best describe John’s house.

c.Use the words to describe Ann’s and John’s houses, then describe your house.

Annlivesinatraditionalcottageinthecountry.Thecottageis...

6a. Read the advertisements, then, in pairs, list the special features of each property under the headings:

Inside - Outside

A

∞: Inside: large lounge/dining room ...

Outside: garage, driveway ...

B

7a. Which of these items are in your house? In which room?

ñ refrigerator ñ vacuum cleaner ñ electric heater

ñwashing machine ñ microwave ñ humidifier

ñair conditioner ñ hairdryer ñ dishwasher ñ cooker

refrigerator – kitchen

b.Match the columns. Which of these have you/haven’t you got in your house?

There are built-in wardrobes in our house.

We haven’t got ...

A:Hello!

B:Good morning. I’m calling about the house

advertised for rent in Paddington.

A:Oh yes?

B:I wonder 1) ......................................................

give me a bit more information, please.

A:Of course. 2) ....................................................

like to know?

B:First of all, 3) ....................................................

exactly where the house is situated?

A:Yes, it’s on 15, Bayswater Drive.

B:And the lounge and dining room – are they separate?

A:Yes, but they’re joined by a sliding glass door.

B:And do all the bedrooms have fitted wardrobes?

A:No, only the two largest bedrooms.

B:One last question. Is the garage large enough for two cars?

b.In pairs, take roles and act out dialogues about each of the advertisements in Ex. 6.