Many passages have a vocabulary follow-up. These are placed after the passage to give students experience in dealing with reading passages in spite of difficult vocabulary. These activities can be done first, if you think this will help your students deal with the reading more confidently. | Teacher s notes Estimated class time 1 hour 5 minutes 1 Introduction 5 minutes Students answers will vary but accommodation and food are likely to be the greatest expenses for most. 2 Analysing the chart 10 minutes This requires the title of the chart and the period it covers. Intermediate Ask your students to express the title in a grammatical sentence . The chart shows the expenditure of students under 26 in higher education in the United Kingdom during the period from 1996 to 1999. With a weak class write the sentence above on the board with the prepositions omitted and ask them to fill the gaps. Advanced Ask your students to do a bit more than repeat the vocabulary of the title. For student expenditure elicit the amount students spend. Elicit items. Ask them to write down a suitable sentence . The chart shows changes in the amount students spent on different items between 1996 and 1999. Be careful as your students may lose interest if more than 5 minutes is spent on this. They may have some difficulty in detecting a general trend. If so ask them to put the items in the chart into 2 categories necessary expenditure and unnecessary expenditure. ask them if they can draw a conclusion. ANSWER KEY The main trend is a shift in spending from essential expenditure to l non-essential expenditure. NB It is worth reminding them not to try to explain the trend. In the test they will only have to report the data presented to them. 3 Describing trends 10 minutes Ask your students to use these sentences as models and to write other similar sentences based on information from the chart. Advanced Elicit synonyms of decrease fell and went down and antonyms where appropriate before they start writing. 4 Using prepositions 15 minutes One of students main difficulties in describing trends is the use of prepositions. If necessary explain the following in - a change in category . a fall in living standards of - noun of amount . a fall of 20
