Corso Upper Intermediate

CORSO UPPER INTERMEDIATE di Antonio Portaluri e Raffaele Nardella

Introduzione
Il Corso Upper Intermediate propone una serie di attività per l'approfondimento della lingua inglese in contesti specifici.

Quella che segue è l'undicesima unità del Corso Upper Intermediate ideata per l'apprendimento del lessico utile alla descrizione del carattere di una persona.
E' possibile riascoltare il testo per migliorare la comprensione e la pronuncia in inglese; gli esercizi, inoltre, hanno l'obiettivo di controllare la comprensione e di consolidare l'apprendimento dei vocaboli e delle espressioni presenti nel testo.

UNIT 11 - DESCRIBING CHARACTER

Listening

Vocabulary

Comprehension

Structure

Step 1

When you want to know about a person’s character you ask "what is he/she like?"
Words to describe people’s character often come in pairs of opposites. Sometimes the difference lies in the use of a prefix (e.g. un- or in-), in other cases the word changes completely. Here are some positive and negative qualities connected to a work situation:
reliable - unreliable
ambitious - unambitious
honest - dishonest
punctual - late
hard-working - lazy

Look out for pairs of opposites in the following story:
Yesterday I overheard a conversation between Barbara and Kerstin. Barbara was telling Kerstin how wrong she had been about Pelagia. At first she thought she was cold and unfriendly, but soon found out that in fact she was quite the opposite, very warm and friendly. " She is probably very shy. That’s all". She concluded.

Listening

Vocabulary

Comprehension

Structure

Step 2

Kerstin did not agree. Pelagia had never been shy with her but open and self-confident - right from the start. "The thing is, she has ups and downs", she said. " She is usually cheerful, kind and sensitive, but if she is feeling miserable, she can be insensitive… and unkind even". The fact was that Pelagia had just failed an exam when Barbara met her. Barbara was surprised, she thought Pelagia was very clever.

Pelagia was clever, and hard-working too but her boy-friend had left her just before the exam so Pelagia had started to be depressed and pessimistic about everything. "Oh dear" said Barbara, "do you know why he left her?" "Believe it or not.. he said she was too much for him". Answered Kerstin. "Too active, too lively, too sociable. He needed a break".