III. Post-reading

3.1. Feelings.

Many people were involved in Lupe Merdano's success story. In what way do you think they all felt about the events described? How good (or bad) were their feelings? Speak for the following characters:

Rachel, Lupe's mother,

Mr Merdano, her father

Lupe's brother,

Alfonso, a neighbor

Yolanda, a schoolgirl,

Miss Baseball Cap

Head Referee,

President of the Marble Association

And don't forget the dog who came to see what it was all about!

3.2. Extra-curricula activities.

While reading, you must have paid attention to the number of out-of-class activities in which Lupe excelled: a spelling contest, a reading contest, a science fair, a piano recital, and a chess tournament, What conclusion can one make about the extra-curricula activities at American schools?

Name at least five types of activities in which you yourself participated when a teenager.

3.3. Debating club.

Hold your first session of Debating Club in your group. The problem under discussion is whether competition influences the development of character. Can teachers do without competition?

3.4. Read & discuss poetry.

Discuss the following poem written by Faustin Charles.

BRAZILIAN FOOTBALLER

Pele kicked in his mother's belly

And the world shouted:

Gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooal!

When her son was born,

He became the sun,

And rolled on the fields of heaven.

The moon and stars trained and coached him,

In the Milky Way

He swayed, danced, and dribbled,

Smooth like water off a duck's back

Ready always to attack.

One hot day, heaven fell down, floored!

Through the Almighty's hands

Pele scored!

3.5. Project work.

Find more poems about sports and games, and bring them to class to read and share with your group mates.

THE LIVELY SOCCER BALL

by Delaney Lundberg

I. Pre-reading

1.1. SHARE your experiences of reading books or watching movies about sports and games, and athletes.

1.2. DISCUSS the problem of doing sport in every season of your life. Will you still need sport when you are sixty-four?

1.3. FIND OUT as many facts as you can about the most spectacular of games, European football, also called soccer.

II. READING

2.1. Understanding the title.

Here is the title of the story, The Lively Soccer Ball. What do you expect to read about in the story?

2.2. Reading for pleasure and enrichment.

Read the story and answer the question: What was really wrong with the ball?

The following words will be helpful to understand the events better.

Scrawny — bony, very thin

Disheartening — making you lose hope

Scatter — go in different directions

Lament — something that you say expressing sadness

Dejected — unhappy, disappointed or sad

Pivot — turn quickly on your feet

Twilight — faint half-light before sunrise or after sunset

"Daniel, it's yours!"

It was the voice of Mr Finnerty, the soccer coach. But Daniel had already seen the opportunity and was closing in on the rolling ball. Miraculously, a hole had opened up between him and the goal at the same time. No defender blocked his way; all he had to do was let fly. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw one scrawny red-shirt rush­ing toward him. Not fast enough, though, he thought. In this game, timing was everything, timing and skill. He took a deep breath and released his right leg like a spring. But it was a disheartening whiff! that sounded in his ears, not the sound of a soccer ball connecting neatly with a player's shoe. His foot had only grazed the ball.

The ball had rolled on behind him, he realized and that scrawny defender was circling him now, ready to take it down the field toward his own goal.

What was wrong with that ball, anyway? But there was no time to stop and think about it now. Daniel turned quickly to pursue the defender. All was not lost, he thought. He could get it back.

But it was no good. The ball frisked along merrily between the feet of the red-shirted defender. And just as Daniel got ready to close in and make his challenge, the ball flew off the defender's foot and sailed through the air to land up in front of the red-shirts' forward line. His own team's defenders were scattered and confused. The goal for the red team was made in one blink of Daniel's eye.

"Tie score," Daniel heard Mr. Finnerty lament from the sideline. Daniel kept his eyes on the grass near his feet, unwilling to look up and catch his coach's glance, though Mr. Finnerty rarely scolded his players.

Daniel's head was still down as his dejected teammates lined up for a new kickoff. It was his fault, he knew. If only he could make it right again. Leonard, the center midfielder, passed the ball off to Charlene, one of the other forwards and the only girl on the team. Daniel ran out on the wing, slightly ahead of Charlene, positioning himself to receive a pass. If he could score now, perhaps he could blot out that slip-up of a few minutes ago.

"Go, Blue!" he heard a voice cry from the sideline. It was the voice of his mother, the team's most loyal fan.

He saw that Charlene had taken note of his position. He was ready now, ready to take that ball and run through every defender to get it up to the goal.

And there it was, the ball, gliding smoothly over the grass toward him on a crisp, perfect pass from Charlene. He focused his mind, moving toward the spot where he and the ball would meet. And then, all at once, the ball seemed to disappear from view. Where was it? Where on earth had it gone?

Finally Daniel saw it. It had stopped dead in a stupid little puddle left over from a recent rain, a puddle Daniel hadn't even noticed until this moment. The ball's sudden lack of motion confused everyone, red and blue alike. Players rushed in from all sides. Daniel had to make a sudden change of direction himself and found as he pivoted that his feet weren't in touch with the grass anymore. He felt himself falling through the air, arms extended. His head hit the ground with a bump.

He lay there a moment, dazed, then raised his head.

"Are you all right, Daniel?" he heard Mr. Finnerty call.

"I'm O.K.," he shouted back.

With his head down low, the hum of the spectators on the side­lines seemed to fade away, and Daniel looked across a strangely silent field. The setting sun outlined his teammates in gold as they whirled away from him with the ball. From where he lay, head still down, they looked shorter than the uneven blades of grass before his eyes. And the ball, that shining globe of black and white, danced around between the red and blue players, twirling and ricocheting in the slanting light, moving in elaborate patterns all its own.

Suddenly it came to Daniel: he and his teammates only thought they were playing with the ball. They had it the wrong way around! The ball was playing with them! It skittered to the left, then bounded to the right. It cavorted like a kitten, then leaped like a stag. It singled out one boy to play with, skipping gaily toward him. But no sooner did that boy catch it on his foot than the fickle ball would bounce away, seeming to choose another. Red, blue, it made no difference to the ball. Motion, contact, weren't those the objects of the game?

Daniel was upon his feet again, but he didn't feel quite himself. Still, he ran up to join the play.

But now the ball just would not come to him. Stubborn ball: it went to Charlene, it went to Leonard, it bounced over the scrawny defender's toe. It winged its way down the field, leaped from the goalie's hands. No matter where Daniel placed himself, the ball went somewhere else.

"Two more minutes'." he heard Mr. Finnerty call to them.

Daniel's head still wasn't clear. He couldn't get over the notion that the outcome of the game depended more on what the ball decided to do than on the players' moves. Oh well, he said to himself. A tie game isn't so bad, is it?

The ball flew smartly off Charlene's foot, only to nit a goalpost and bounce back into play. The crowd moaned. The ball wobbled behind the goal off the toe of a defender, and Leonard took the corner kick. When it darted back in off Leonard's shoe and landed square before the goal, the crowd went wild.

But the ball decided then that it would rather bop around like a Mexican jumping bean than roll into the goal like a good little ball. And the seconds were ticking away.

Daniel's head was clearer now, but he couldn't get rid of the idea that this ball was playing a game of its own.

"Thirty seconds!" Mr. Finnerty called, and Daniel heard his mother's voice above the others in the crowd. "Come on, Blue, you can do it!"

All at once something clicked in Daniel's head. He turned his eyes to the spinning ball. "Hey, ball," he said. "I'm talking to you, ball. Come on. Let's play together, you and me. Let's do it together. Let's make a goal!"

And as if it had actually heard him, the ball wriggled free of the crowd of players around the goal and bounced into an empty patch of field. Daniel was on it in an instant. Three red jerseys ran in to surround him. He gave the ball a backward tap with one heel, then turned and dribbled to one side. The ball frolicked along with him like a frisky little puppy. Just before the red jerseys closed in again, the ball spun out neatly on the grass before his feet, seeming to call to him, "Do it now, Daniel, do it now!"

Daniel planted a good kick.

Whomp! The ball rose up over the heads of the red jerseys. Daniel followed it with his eyes until it stood against the blue of the sky.

Too high, he thought. But he traced its arc as it swung down, down, down toward the setting sun. The red goalie leaped in the air, stretching his arms toward the spinning ball as it curved in toward the goal. At the last instant, the ball dipped under the crossbar, beyond the goalie's reach, and let the enclosing net carry it all the way to the ground with a graceful sigh.

The referee blew his whistle, three short blasts. "We won! We won! Daniel, you did it!" his teammates shouted. And they rushed to him and slapped their palms against his, hands held high in the air.

The sun suddenly sank below the trees, taking its golden glow along with it. Mr. Finnerty walked onto the field to congratulate his team. aniel stood in the tight knot of players huddled around their coach, r. Finnerty smiled down at Daniel and slipped his arm around him.

It was just at that moment that Daniel caught sight of the once-ively soccer ball. It had come to rest in the grass outside the goal, nd there it lay in the twilight, motionless and still.

2.3. True or false?

According to the story, Daniel...

1. could hardly be called a good player.

2. blinked his eyes too often during the game.

3. never paid attention to what Mr Finnerty the Coach was saying.

4. played to the audience, his Mother being one of the fans.

5. seemed to let his imagination go wild during the game.

6. didn't feel quite himself, nor did he feel quiet.

7. expected little of Charlene's skills as a player.

8. had something in his head clicking all the time.

2.4. Understanding points of view.

Scan the story and try to explain the boyish behaviour of the Ball, as well as the footballish behaviour of the Boy.

2.5. Vocabulary in focus.

There is an incredible variety of verbs in the story gliding by, dancing around, whirling and twirling to their hearts' content. Find at least 25 of them to describe the weird ways of the ball. The first five, in the alphabetical order, are here for you. Bop, bounce, bound, cavort, curve, …

5. More vocabulary.

Match the words with their definitions.

To pursue In one blink of an eye To take a note of something to Loyal Dazed To fade away Elaborate To close in To get over something

to move close to somebody complicated, full of details cope with something in a very short period of time to register something in your mind supporting your friends to chase or follow unable to think clearly to gradually disappear

2.7. Storing vocabulary.

Paraphrase the following sentences using the words and expressions from Exercise 2.6.

1. She always notices my dress, as if she's got nothing better to do.

2. He is a man of fixed views, and he'll never change his principles.

3. By and by the music ceased to be heard.

4. It became dark almost in an instant.

5. He can't overcome his ambitions chasing some weird ideas.

6. Let him be. Don't you see he's still in a sort of shock?

7. What about the decorations? — A bit too many and too beautiful.