38 Unit 2: Amazing animals
Cloze procedure exercise In the following paragraph, Herman C. Bosman describes a visit to the Johannesburg Zoo. In groups, discuss the most suitable words to fill in the blank spaces. Write them down and compare them with those of the other groups. Feeding time at the zoo Everyone says that feeding time is the most exciting time of the day at the zoo, so last week some friends and I decided to visit the Johannesburg Zoo to see for ourselves. We arrived at 10 a.m. to make sure of finding the best place to watch the main event of the day. Some time later, one of our party who was _1_ as a lookout man, pointed. We _2_ in the direction he was indicating and saw a man _3_ down the yellow grass with a sickle. We had seen our _4_ zookeeper. I opened my dairy and, having consulted _5_ watch, made the following entry after the printed words, Monday, 19th: At 10.48 a.m. _6_ we spotted our first zookeeper. What we saw taking place before our _7_ in the next few minutes can only be described as gruesome. For the keepers, whose numbers had now _8_ to over half-a-dozen, lay down in a _9_ on a wide stretch of grass and produced lunch-tins and brown paper parcels. From _10_ they took out a variety of prepared foodstuffs which they _11_ greedily and with great enjoyment. It was feeding time at the zoo all right, and we _12_ a number of photographs to prove that we had seen it. from A Cask of Jerepigo by Herman C. Bosman first eyes these acting increased took gazed my group ate cutting precisely 39
Spelling creatures animals extinction temperature survival environment protection endangered different wildlife elephant chameleon orang-outang giraffe gorilla kangaroo leopard tortoise chimpanzee cheetah Dictation The lizard The lizard is a timid thing That cannot dance or fly or sing; He hunts for bugs beneath the floor And longs to be a dinosaur. (John Gardner) I ve got a dog I ve got a dog as thin as a rail, He s got fleas all over his tail; Every time his tail goes flop, the fleas at the bottom all hop to the top. (Anonymous) Homophones Words that sound the same but have different spelling and meanings bear bare heard herd you ewe hole whole pray prey A bear is a dangerous animal. Don t walk here with bare feet, there might be scorpions. Have you heard the latest news? We saw a herd of buffaloes near the camp. I know you like animals. The ewe is a female sheep. The mole lives deep down in its hole. The monkey stole the whole packet of sweets. We pray to God. The cat caught a mouse as its prey. 40
Proverbs and idioms When the cat s away the mice will play. The early bird catches the worm. Don t count your chickens before they are hatched. Birds of a feather flock together. Care killed the cat. Out of the horse s mouth. Hold your horses. Let the cat out of the bag. The lion s share. Donkey s years. Curiosity killed the cat. People do as they please when the person in charge is out of the way. If you want the best, then you must get there first. Don t plan too far ahead; things might not go your way. People who like the same things will seek each other s company. Too much worry can kill a person. From a person who knows what is true. Wait a moment. To reveal a secret. The biggest part. A very long time. Getting into trouble for prying into other people s affairs Expressions As brave as a lion As quiet as a mouse As faithful as a dog As wise as an owl As sleek as an otter / eel As gentle as a lamb As talkative as a parrot As dirty as a pig As blind as a bat As swift as a hare As strong as an ox As slow as a tortoise / snail As big as an elephant As stubborn as a mule As playful as a kitten As ugly as a toad / sin As sly as a fox As busy as a bee As fierce as a tiger As agile as a monkey 41
Reading development Reading and understanding: Class reading Work with a friend. The ten creatures in the pictures below belong to five different families of animals. Two belong to each family. Put the creatures in the pairs that you think belong together in the same family. Do you know the names of the families? Then follow the passage below as your educator reads it and find out if you were right. butterfly ostrich crocodile snake rabbit scorpion grasshopper spider hen elephant 42
Animal families The animal world is divided into many different families. For example, ostriches and hens both belong to the bird family; elephants and rabbits belong to the mammal family; crocodiles and snakes are reptiles; spiders and scorpions are arachnids; and grasshoppers and butterflies are both insects. We can classify each type of animal according to its family or relatives. For example, this is how we classify a tiger: a tiger belongs to the family of big cats, which is part of the larger family of cats. Cats belong to the family of carnivores (meat eaters), which all belong to the family mammals. There are different words for these families: Class, Order, Family, Genus and Species. Lions and cheetahs belong to the same class, order, family and genus as tigers, but they are a different species: Class: Mammals Mammals Order: Carnivores Carnivores Family: Cats Cats Genus: Big cats Big cats Species: Lion Cheetah All creatures that belong to the class of mammals are warm-blooded, which means that their blood stays the same temperature. (Cold-blooded creatures, such as reptiles, have blood that warms or cools down to become the same as the temperature of their environment.) Most mammals have fur on their bodies, and most give birth to live young. All mammals suckle their young with their own milk. Within the class of mammals, there are a number of orders, e.g. carnivores, herbivores (plant-eaters), omnivores (which eat both meat and plants), insectivores (insect-eaters) and frugivores (fruit-eaters). Scientists believe that between 500 and 1 000 species of plants and animals are becoming extinct each year. This means that they are dying out, and will never live on this planet again. The animal that is making these species extinct is a mammal: humans. When humans cut down forests so that they can grow crops and build houses, the forest life dies. When humans put poison on the land and in the seas, life dies. And when humans kill animals to make coats from their fur, those animal species may never be seen on earth again. 43
Answer these questions 1. Name two reptiles. 2. Name two arachnids. 3. Name two insects. 4. To which order does the tiger belong? 5. To which class does the tiger belong? 6. How are lion and cheetahs the same? 7. How are lions and cheetahs different? 8. Name two cold-blooded creatures. 9. What do we call animals that eat fruit? 10. What do we call animals that eat plants? 11. Name two things that all mammals have in common. 12. Name two things that most mammals have in common. 13. Imagine that you are the last gorilla left on earth. There used to be two of you, but this morning you watched as some humans killed your mate. Write and then read a page from your diary. Group reading Take turns in your group to read paragraphs from this story. Then close your books and ask questions about the story to see if you can remember the details of the story. Individual reading Animal Rescue It was a beautiful, warm evening and Katy and her friends were enjoying a party on the beach. It was Katy s thirteenth birthday. There were a few older boys who were drinking wine. Katy hated this. She had seen what alcohol could do to people. As the evening turned into night, one of the boys had an idea. Let s go out on the sea! he said. We can take my father s fishing boat. He won t mind. Don t be crazy, said Katy. Anything could happen! But Katy s friends thought it was a cool idea to go out on a boat. If she didn t go with them, she d be left alone on the beach. And it was her birthday. She didn t want to be alone on her birthday. So the party moved along the beach to the harbour, with the teenagers singing their favourite songs as they went. They climbed aboard Philip s father s boat and headed out to sea. There was no moon to light the water and everything was very dark. The children danced and sang and shouted. No one knows how it happened, or why, but two of the boys began to fight. It must have been their fighting that knocked Katy overboard, but they didn t notice that she was missing 44
until they got back to the jetty. Katy sank down, down into the cold, dark water. She called for help, but no one on the noisy boat heard. She was not a very good swimmer. She knew that she was going to drown. Then a smooth shape brushed past her in the water, and she felt another shape underneath her, carrying her up and up. When she reached the surface of the water, she gasped for breath, expecting to sink down again. But something was keeping her up. She looked around in the darkness and saw that it was a shoal of dolphins that was helping her. She held on to one of them and it swam with her towards a buoy. Katy held on to the buoy until the rescue boat came. The dolphins waited with her until they saw the lights of the boat and they knew that she was safe. Then they disappeared into the night. When Katy told her story to the Sea Rescue people, she expected them to laugh. But it was a story they had heard before. Dolphins have rescued drowning people all over the world. We don t know why dolphins help humans like this, but when Katy finishes school, she s going to become a zoologist, and she is going to find out! Rate your reading Yourself Friend Educator Fluency 6 Clarity 4 Tempo 3 Tone of voice 3 Phrasing 2 Punctuation 2 Total 20 45