13.8 Your own leisure activities and skills

Free practice

Work in pairs.

Find out as much as you can about your partner's leisure activities.

Find out how much he/she does of each activity, and how good he/she is at it. Ask about:

sports reading

hobbies other activities s

ocial life

Write the information down in the form of notes.

Writing

Using your notes, write a paragraph about how your partner spends his/her spare time.

13.9 Chips with everything

Reading

Read the newspaper article below, and answer the questions.

1. Where is the writer at the beginning of the passage?

2. Who asks the question 'How's the basketball coming on ?'

3. The people are talking about video games. How does the writer know this ? Give three answers.

4. Explain 'The penny dropped'.

5. The writer mentions two important effects that the silicon chip will have on people's lives. What are they ?

6. Two things puzzle the writer about schoolchildren and space invader machines. What are they?

7. What two types of game can you play on a home video set ?

8. What effects does the writer think that video games may have on people?

9. How good is the writer at: a) playing backgammon? b) playing space invader machines?

10. On the whole, do you think the writer approves of video games, or not?

Discussion

1. Do you play any video games ? How good are you at them ?

2. Do you think that (a) video games in public places (b) home video games are a good thing? What are their good and bad effects?

3. Gambling in public places is controlled by law. Do you think that video games in public places should be controlled by law as well? Why/Why not?

Unit 13 Summary of language

In this unit you have learnt how to:

• talk and ask about leisure activities

• say how much you do of a particular activity

• talk and ask about skill

key points

1. Questions about activities

Do you

fish go fishing

(at all)!

Do you play chess (at all) ?

Do you do any gardening?

2. Expressions of quantity

I ski quite a lot.

I don't go swimming very much.

I don't play chess at all.

I do a lot of painting.

I don't do much waterskiing.

I don't do any cooking.

3. ‘Skill’ expressions

Are you any good at dancing?

She's terrific at swimming.

I'm not very good at (playing) chess.

Are you a good dancer?

She's a fantastic swimmer.

I'm quite a good chess player.

4. Vocabulary

sports and hobbies

Unit 14 Advice