A portrait of two cities
Do you prefer to live in a big city, in a town or a village? Do you like the area where you live? In this section, you and your classmates are going to become architects and designers to plan an ideal city to live.
Previous activities: Where is it better?
Find below three activities to prepare the mission consisting of designing and planning an ideal city. All the language contents presented here will help you carry out your mission more easily.
- Activity 1: A model city
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Read the information about sustainable cities on the bbc.co.uk. website. Then, watch the video on Vitoria-Gasteiz, a city declared European Green capital in 2012. With a classmate, comment on what you can see around the city. Consider the questions below for your comments.
- Are there a lot of cars and traffic lights?
- Has it got good public transport?
- How do people move around the city?
- Are there many green spaces and cycle lanes?
- Is there much pollution?
- Are there many tall buildings?
- Add more information about services in Vitoria-Gasteiz. Use quantifiers, which you can revise on the totalenglish.com webpage, to say what there is or there isn't in the city.
- Activity 2: Comparing cities
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Maybe, you prefer a bigger city to live, like Paris or New York. Enter the Paris/New York video. and write down all the elements that both cities have in common.
With a classmate, compare these two big cities with your own city, town or village. Use comparative and superlative adjectives, You can access the perfect-english-grammar.com site to have a thorough revision of these forms.
- Take these sentences as examples: In New York , there is more traffic than in my town./The buildings in my town are shorter than in New York. / New York has got the tallest buildings.
Write down/type a list of 7 comparative/superlative sentences and publish it on the page entitled 'My writing guide' in your Weebly site.
Speaking. Which city do you and your partner prefer to live in: Vitoria-Gasteiz, Paris, New York or your own city or town? Justify your answer to the rest of the group.
- Activity 3: Ideal city Marathon
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Individual work. Sign in at Canva and design a mindmap based on your ideal city. Include in the categories below the elements that you consider as ideal for your city.
- Location
- Types of houses/buildings
- On streets
- Green spaces
- Sustainablity (to help you understand better this term, watch and listen to the What is sustainability? video.
When you finish your mindmap, you will present it in front of your classmates. You must know that you will have 45 seconds to talk about your ideal city. In your presentation, use WILL future sentences, as in My ideal city will have a lot of green spaces. There won't be much traffic.
Check how to use the simple future on ego4u.com.
Share your mindmap with your classmates on Pinterest. Remember to attach a photo when you post it. Publish your mindmap on the page entitled 'My digital Resources' in your Weebly site.
- Extra resources
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- The best city to live and work. Informative website
- Other places in a city. Illustration
- My favourite city. Listening
- What is a smart city? Video
- Conversation questions about cities
At the end of this section, you will have:
- Described a townscape
- Practised large and small quantities
- Compared two cities
- Practised how to make predictions
- Planned and presented an ideal city
some, any, a lot (of), few, little, much, many
- City - a large or important town.
- Town - a populated area with fixed boundaries and a local government. It is usually smaller than cities
- Village - a small community in a rural area.
To understand better what sustainability is, read some children's descriptions on this term:
• Something that lasts for a long time- maybe forever
• Like a circle- it goes around and all is re-used
• Taking care of the planet and its creatures
• Something that is good for everyone
• Thinking about what you need rather than taking what you want
• Making the world a better place for the future
• Making rules we can all follow
• Taking care of the air, water, land and those who live there
• One thing leads to another, then another. Let’s make the chain good.
Source: https://globaldimension.org.uk/wllgoal/sustainable-cities-and-communities/