I will survive by Gloria Gaynor

Unit 6 Avoiding repetition

Shortening the joke (PW)

Material: Worksheets for each pair

Students work in pairs and try to make the joke shorter, omitting only unnecessary information. Set the time limit. The pair who managed to make the shortest joke wins.

Key:

A police officer pulled over a driver and informed him that, because he was wearing his seat belt, he had just won $1,000 in a safety competition. ''What are you going to do with the prize money?'' the officer asked. The man responded, ''I guess I'll go to driving school and get my license.'' At that moment, his wife, who sat next to him, chimed in, ''Officer, don't listen to him. He's sarcastic when he's drunk.'' This woke up the guy in the back seat, who, when he saw the cop, blurted out, ''I knew we wouldn't get far in this stolen car.'' At that moment, there was a knock from the trunk and a voice asked ''Are we over the border yet?'' (11)

Shortening the joke

A police officer pulled over a driver and informed the driver that, because he was wearing his seat belt in his car, he had just won $1,000 in a safety competition. ''What are you going to do with the prize money you have just won?'' the officer asked.

The man responded, ''I guess I'll go to driving school where I can learn to drive a car and get my license.'' At the moment when the man was telling this, the wife of the driver, who sat next to him, chimed in, ''Officer, don't listen to him. He's sarcastic when he's drunk.''

The conversation of the officer, the driver and his wife woke up the guy in the back seat of the car, who, when he saw the cop, blurted out, ''I knew you, your wife and me wouldn't get far in this stolen car.'' At that moment, there was a knock from the side of the trunk and a voice from that direction asked ''Are we over the border yet?''

Unit 7 Ways of linking ideas

Sorting out a joke (PW)

Material: Worksheet cut in cards for each pair

Ask the students work in pairs and arrange the cards in order so that they will have a complete joke. The first pair to sort it out (quickly and correctly) wins.

Ask them if there were some links between parts of sentences which helped them to arrange the lines properly. Students should find 5 examples of linking (relative clauses, etc.)

Key:

Two Polish guys who had never left Poland were taking their first train trip to Warsaw on the train. A vendor came down the corridor selling bananas which they'd never seen before. Each bought one.

The first one eagerly peeled the banana and bit into it just as the train went into a tunnel. When the train emerged from the tunnel, he looked across to his friend who hadn’t tried the fruit yet and said, "I wouldn't eat that if I were you."

"Why not?" 

"Having eaten it, I went blind for half a minute, which was really scary" 

Sorting out a joke

Two Polish guys

who had never left Poland were taking their first train trip

to Warsaw on the train. A vendor came down the corridor selling bananas

which they'd never seen before. Each bought one.

The first one eagerly peeled the banana and bit into it just

as the train went into a tunnel. When the train emerged

from the tunnel, he looked across to his friend

who hadn’t tried the fruit yet and said, "I wouldn't eat that

if I were you."

"Why not?"

"Having eaten it, I went blind for half a minute,

which was really scary"