2. Discuss or debate the questions below. Remember to support your answers!

• Are you afraid of natural disasters? How about man-made disasters, like an airplane crash? Which is scarier?

• Have you ever experienced a natural disaster? If yes, what happened?

• Does your country experience natural disasters? If yes, what kind and how often?

• What can people do to prepare for an earthquake? How about a tornado? A flood?

• If you were in a disaster and survived, what would you do immediately afterwards?

• Why do you think that people continue to live in areas where natural disasters repeatedly happen? Why do people rebuild and live in the same place?

Vocabulary development

1. Study the table below

Words denoting natural disasters	Adjectives describing natural disasters	Synonyms for natural disasters
aftershock tornado, avalanche, lightning ,blizzard, cyclone, deluge, drought, earthquake , epidemics, eruptions, famine, fire, flood ,fog ,hail, heat wave ,hurricane, ice storms, landslide, mudslide ,sinkholes, slide snowstorms, storm ,storm surges, thunder, tidal wave, tornadoes, tsunami ,typhoon, volcano eruption , whirlpool ,wildfires	strong, quick, mighty, gargantuan, enormous, devastating, destructive, huge, scary, terrifying, damaging, devastating, massive, sweeping/ washing away, buried, fierce, seasonal, tormenting, forceful, violent, blistering, stuffy, scorching, raging, vicious, ferocious, thunderous, powerful, rampaging, crashing	circumstances beyond one’s control, force majeure, freak accident, inevitable accident, unavoidable casualty, vis major, debacle, act of God, calamity, affliction,

2. Look at the spidergram below. Use the words form the table above to describe each element of the chart. What do you know about each natural disaster?

3 .

You are invited to a birthday party and you hardly know people there. Some of the guests started to share stories about natural disasters they’ve witnessed and their panic-free and reasonable behavior to show off. You decide to tell your story as well to attract attention of the audience and gain new friends.

Work in two teams. Make up a story using the set of words and phrases for each team to invent a story to tell at the party.

Example: It began with a slow pitter-pattering of rain, bouncing off the roof and forming puddles. We thought nothing of it and continued our game of cards, laughing and talking. It steadily built up to a thunderous deluge, so loud that we had to look up and peer out the window. The winds were driving the rain faster, harder and stronger than it had ever before. It died down a little, and I turned back to the game of cards. But before I could play, lightning struck. It had hit an oak tree, legendary for surviving lightning strikes. I sighed a quick sigh of relief, but all of a sudden a loud cracking sound was heard, and with a mighty groan the king of the trees split in half, charred and alight with fire. It was only then that I began to fear the storm…

Team 1

H eavy rain, sheets of water falling from dark skies, flooded streets, clothes soaked, unnatural darkness of the afternoon, rain beating down flamboyant trees, sky hot silver, lightning and thunder, storm overhead, storm far off over the forest, glorious clouded sunset, unpaved paths awash with mud, sinking sun shot through layers of grey cloud, streams and rivers swollen, innumerable little cascades over rocks.

Team 2

Crash of lightening, startled air, booming thunder rolls through sleepy hills, sheets of rain, forked lightening striking the church weather vane, blanket lightening brilliant like a camera flash, counting between the flash and the roar, storm approaching, rain pelting against window panes, wind whistling down the chimney top, fences creaking, tree tops bent, pitted against the unrelenting gale, streams full to bursting, ground mushy, squelchy, boggy, water lies in rain pelted puddles, roads become rivers.

 

Listening

Watch the video Life with Louie.