This activity encourages the students to approach a text with the prepared mind, by getting them to think about what they already know about the subject before they read. This also gives the students a purpose for reading, as they read to check their knowledge of the subject against the text.

Aim and objectives:
*developing basic skills;
*developing socio-cultural competence.

1*Students look at the title and the map.
*Ask What country is the text about?
*Students close their books.
*Divide the class into the pairs or group of four.
*Students write down everything they know about Australia. Allow 5 minutes.
*Students open their books. They read the main text and the texts on the map to check their ideas.
Ask:
What facts did you already know?
What new facts did you learn?
Did you get any information wrong?
Did you know other thing that aren’t in the text
2*Students read the text again and complete the chart.
*Copy the chart onto the board.
*Get students to complete the chart.

Answer key:
*The Commonwealth of Australia
*Seven and a half million square kilometers
*Sixteen and a half million people
*English
*The Australian dollar (not given in the text)
*Sydney
*Canberra
*A federal state
*The Prime Minister
*The British monarch
*Mining industry, agriculture (especially sheep) and tourism

Complete this table
*official name ………………………………………………………
*area …………………………………………………………………
*population …………………………………………………………
*language ………………………………………………………………
*currency ………………………………………………………………
*the largest city ………………………………………………………
*capital ………………………………………………………………
*the Head of Government ………………………………………
*main sources of income …………………………………………

TEXT OZ
There are many names for Australia - Qz, Down Under, and the official name, the Commonwealth of Australia. But the name that the Australia like is 'the Lucky Country'. It probably didn't seem very luckey to the first European settlers. They were convicts who had been transported from Britain. But after gold was discovered in 1850s, thousand of free settlers left the cold, dark industrial towns of Britain to find their place in the sun. Australia has a population of about sixteen and a half million people. in a country of over seven and a half million square kilometres - the sixth largest in the world - this is a very small population. At least three cities in the world have larger population than the whole Australia.
Over eighty per cent of Australia's population is of the British origin. This can be seen in many aspects of Australian life. English is the national language, cricket is the national game, and they drive on the left. Many older Australians still call Britain 'the Mother Country'. However, in recent years most immigrants have come from other European countries such as Italy, Greece and Poland, or from Asian countries. Young Australians see Australia as their 'Mother Country'.
Australia is a huge Country and has a wide range of climates from the tropical rain forests of the Nothern Territory and northern Queensland to the mild temperate climate of Victoria and Tasmania in the south east. About two-third of the land is desert or semi-desert. As a result most of the central and western parts of Australia are uninhabited or inhabited only by sheep. ( Australia has ten times as many shep as people and is the world's largest producer of wool. ) Over halfthef population live in the south-east corner of the country betweenthe two state capitals of Sydney and Melbourne.
Sydney, with its beautiful harbour, bridge and opera house, is the largest city, with threeand half a million inhabitants, but it isn't the capital. Australia is a federal stateand, like the United States of America, it has a separate capital city - Canberra - which isn't in any of the states themselves. The Commonwealth of Australia consists of five states ( Western Australia, Queenland, South Australia, New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania ) and two territories ( the Nothern Territory and the Canberra Capital Territory ). The Head of Goverment is the Prime Minister, but the Head of the State is still hte British monarch.
Mining, industry and agriculture are Australia's most important sources of income. More recently, tourism has become important, too. Tourists come to enjoy Australia's warm climate, to see the unique animals, such as kangaroo, the koala and the platypus, and to see beautiful natural features like the Great Barrier Reef and the mysterious Ayers Rock.

Find these things in the text.
a four things that show the British origins of the population
b four types of climate that Australia has
c three things that tourists might see in Sydney
d three things that tourists might see outsides Sydney

PERCENTAGES AND FRACTIONS
a Find these numbers in the text.
1/2 7.5 million 80% 2/3

b complete and say the numbers.

PERCENTAGES AND FRACTIONS
80% /5
- 1/3
30% /10
25% -

- 3/4
c Complete these sentenses from the text.

Over........................Australia's population is of British origin.

About.......................the land is desert or semi-desert/

Over........................The population lives in the south - east corner...

d What do you notice about HALF?

WRITING AT HOME
Use the information from the table

*official name ………………………………………………………
*area …………………………………………………………………
*population …………………………………………………………
*language ………………………………………………………………
*currency ………………………………………………………………
*the largest city ………………………………………………………
*capital ………………………………………………………………
*the Head of Government ………………………………………
*main sources of income ………………………………………

Write a paragraph about Australia. Start like this.

The official name of Australia is... Its area is... and it has apopulation of...

ADDITIONAL ACTIVITY
Get student to rewrite their paragraphs to incorporate the information about the following:

other name for Australia
the distribution of populatin
the climate
things that tourists come to see
the nost interesting piece of information.

Предмети: Англійська мова

Класи: 11 клас