B2.2 Unit 6: Telling Stories

Aims:

Listen to an author talking about her life.
Discuss scenarios for a story.
Read an extract from a famous novel.
Try writing a fictional story.
Analyse stories: their language and their structures.

Grammar:

Narratives tenses: past simple (causal events), past continuous (context), past perfect (background)

Vocab:

Vivid verbs
Verbs related to telling stories
Emotions

Reading:

Extract from Mary Shelly's Frankenstein
Additional short story: The Bus Diver Who Wanted to Be God

Listening:

For specific details
To an audiobook

Phrasal verbs


Try to match (some can be used for more than one):

act up
come by
flunk out
long for
look back
pick on (sb)
put off
see (sth) in (sb)
set out


at school
in class
in maths
on my life
cleaning the house
great potential
to do something
a wonderful film (by chance)
a dream to be fulfilled



Examples:

act up at school / in class
come by a wonderful film (by chance)
flunk out in maths / at school
long for a dream to be fulfilled
look back on my life
pick on (sb) at school
put off cleaning the house
see great potential in (sb)
set out to do something



Words from Mary Shelly's Frankenstein:

adjectives (and the nouns they are used with):

dreary (night)
lifeless (body)
fading (light)
dull (yellow eyes)
flowing (hair)
watery (eyes)
shrivelled (complexion)
pale (complexion)
in proportion (limbs)
pearly (teeth)
straight (lips)
sole (purpose)
sleepless (nights)
inanimate ((body)
dim (yellow light)
miserable (monster)
evil (grin)


nouns

agony
glimmer
limb
catastrophe
complexion
wretch
exhaustion
grave-worms
the folds of
(horrible) contrast
horror
disgust
forgetfulness
dew
grin


verbs

to amount to
to bring alive (sth dead)
to lie at (one's feet)
to boom (thunder)
to scarcely cover
to deprive oneself
to endure
to rush out
to toss and turn (in bed)
to be disturbed by (dreams)
to endeavour
to seek
to embrace
to crawl (worms)
to chatter (teeth)
to fix on (eyes)
to mutter
to give life


Grammar:

Past perfect: I had worked, I had deprived myself, I had desired it, I had finished....
Using despite (no subject pronoun + verb): "despite my exhaustion" (not: despite I was exhausted)
Relative clause: "the terrible monster to whom I had given life"