Culture and Literature CompanionElementary, Pre-Intermediate,Intermediate, Upper-Intermediate

2

Elementary Contents

MapoftheUK

MapsofAustraliaandNewZealand

1 Culture CountriesoftheUK

2 Culture GreatBritishFood

3 Culture Halloween

4 Culture BonfireNight

5 Culture Christmasaroundtheworld

6 Culture Hogmany

7 Culture Pantomime

8 Culture AnEnglishvillage

9 Culture TwoschoolsinIndiaandPakistan

10 Culture FebruaryFestivals

11 Culture Anicecupoftea

12 Culture AwalkthroughLondon

13 Culture RobinHood–England’smostfamousfolkhero

14 Culture NewZealand

15 Literature RogerMcGough–The Mafia Cats

16 Literature MarkTwain–The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

17 Literature WendyCope–Threepoems

18 Literature OscarWilde–The Canterville Ghost

19 Literature JohnCooperClarke–I wanna be yours

20 Literature BramStoker–Dracula

Glossary

MapsofUSAandCanada

Pre-Intermediate Contents

MapoftheUK

MapsofAustraliaandNewZealand

1 Culture Scotland,WalesandIreland

2 Culture Footballovertheworld

3 Culture/Literature ThreefamouscharactersinBritishfiction

4 Culture TheCaribbean

5 Culture TheStoryofEnglish

6 Culture FromGlastonburytoGlyndebourne

7 Culture Englishness

8 Culture Youngpeople’srights

9 Culture Fromcastlestocottages

10 Culture PublicholidaysintheUSA

11 Culture Stonehenge

12 Culture Britain’smostfamousgraffitiartist

13 Culture SystemsofgovernmentinBritainandtheUSA

14 Literature Threepoems,threepoets

15 Literature Frankenstein–MaryShelley

16 Literature TwopoemsfromtheCaribbean

17 Literature A Christmas Carol–CharlesDickens

18 Literature Rabbit-Proof Fence–DorisPilkingtonGarimara

19 Literature My Oedipus Complex–FrankO’Connor

20 Literature Notes from a Small Island–BillBryson

Glossary

MapsofUSAandCanada

Intermediate Contents

MapoftheUK

MapsofAustraliaandNewZealand

1A Culture TheBritishEmpire

1B Literature SujataBhatt–Search for My Tongue

2A Culture TheQueen’sHonour’sList

2B Culture QueenElizabethI

3A Culture ArtintheUK–AnthonyGormley

3B Culture/Literature TheGlobeTheatre

4A Culture EducationintheUKandUS

4B Literature PrideandPrejudice

5 Culture SupersizeAmerica;supersizeworld?

6 Literature JohnKeats–Ode on a Grecian Urn

7 Culture LondonWestEndTheatre

8A Culture English-speakingcapitals

8B Culture Australia–GoingtoliveDownUnder

9A Culture Britain’sunrulyteenagers

9B Literature CarolAnnDuffy–We Remember your Childhood Well

10ACulture TransportinLondon

10BLiterature WilfredOwen–Dulce et Decorum Est

11 Literature SirArthurConanDoyle–Hound of the Baskervilles

12ACulture TheAmericanRevolution

12BLiterature SamuelPepys’Diary

Glossary

MapsofUSAandCanada

Upper-Intermediate Contents

MapoftheUK

MapsofAustraliaandNewZealand

1A Culture English–agloballanguage

1B Culture MulticulturalBritain

2A Culture Threetouristsights

2B Literature Gulliver’s Travels

3A Culture TheBritishPress

3B Literature The Clinging Woman

4A Culture GreatBritishMyths

4B Literature The Importance of Being Earnest

5A Culture BritishYouthandtheFuture

5B Literature LouisMacNeice–Prayer Before Birth

6 Culture WorkinghoursinBritain

7 Literature AsonnetbyWilliamShakespeare

8A Culture TheBritishweather

8B Literature WilliamWordsworth–Composed Upon Westminster Bridge

9 Culture SocialnetworkinginBritain

10ACulture Binge-drinkingBritain

10BLiterature The War of the Worlds

11A Culture GreatBritishInventions

11B Literature Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

12 Literature OscarWilde–The Picture of Dorian Gray

Glossary

MapsofUSAandCanada

5Headway Culture and Literature CompanionElementary4 Headway Culture and Literature CompanionElementary

CULTURE

Countries in the UK1 CULTURE

What do you think?▶ Look again at the information

on these pages. Is there anything that surprises you?

It surprises me that ... (there are more than 60 million people in the UK).

▶ Look at the words and phrases in Exercise 7. On holiday, which things are important for you?

I like going to places with good shops.

I enjoy spending all day at the beach and I love surfing.

▶ You’re planning to go to the UK for a week. Where would you like to go, and why?

I want to go to ... because ... I’d like to go to ...

What about you? Where do you want to go?

Project

Designaleafletorawebpageforsomeonevisitingyourcountry.Usetheseheadingsasaguide:•Population•Languages•Money•Placestovisit

5 Read the text and answer the questions.

EN

GL

AN

D

SC

OT

LA

ND

WA

LE

S

Glasgow

Ben NevisBalmoral Castle

LONDONBath

Birmingham

LiverpoolManchester

Newquay

BELFAST

DUBLIN

CARDIFF

EDINBURGH

MountSnowdon

N O R T H E R N I R E L A N D

Cornw

all

Sno

wdo

nia

Britain, GreatBritain = England, Scotland,

Wales

UnitedKingdom = England, Scotland,

Wales, Northern Ireland

Places to visitStart your visit in London. First, go on the London Eye. It’s a big wheel. Take some photos from the top. You can see all over London.

The Romans in Britain? Well, they’re not there now, but in Bath you can see the beautiful Roman baths. The city is good for shops, too. But don’t spend all your money at the shops. It costs £6.80 (if you

6 Where are these places? Write the name under each photo.

7a Write the words and phrases under the correct heading.

Roman baths shops national parks surfing forests mountains palaces restaurants relaxing on the beach

castles rivers swimming

Facilities Beachlife Buildings Landscapeandscenery

shops

7b spend and take

spend

You can spend money, but you can also spend time.

Find an example of each in the text.

take Find three uses of the verb take in the text.

Edinburgh Castle

are under 16) to visit the Roman baths.

Take a train to Newquay in Cornwall. Spend a whole day surfing, swimming and relaxing on the beach. The average temperature in August is 16ºC, so it’s not too hot and not too cold. The train journey from London takes five hours.

Climb Mount Snowdon in north Wales. It’s 1085 metres high. If you

want to go higher, try Ben Nevis in Scotland (1343 metres), the highest mountain in the UK.

Visit Edinburgh and walk along the Royal Mile, from Edinburgh Castle to the Palace of Holyrood House, through the medieval heart of Edinburgh. But don’t expect to see the Queen at the Castle or the Palace. When she’s in Scotland, she stays at Balmoral, a castle surrounded by forests and rivers.

UK

POPULATION

United Kingdom total is 60.6 million.

83.8% live in England.

8.4% live in Scotland.

4.9% live in Wales.

2.9% live in Northern Ireland.

1 Try and answer the questions before you look at the texts.1 Which has more countries in it – the United

Kingdom (UK) or Great Britain (GB)? 2 Match the countries and capital cities:

1 England a Cardiff2 Scotland b London3 Wales c Belfast4 Northern Ireland d Edinburgh

3 Which has the highest population, Scotland or Wales?

4 Do people in the UK use the euro?5 How many official languages are there

in the United Kingdom?

2Money

UK the pound (sterling)

Say: ‘a pound’ Write: £1

Republic of Ireland the euro

Which is worth more, one pound or one euro?

3 Can you work out the answers?1 Welsh and Cornish use the same

word for ‘good’. What is it?2 In Scots Gaelic and Cornish,

what are the words for ‘morning’?

3 In Welsh, what is the word for ‘you’?

4 In Welsh and Scots Gaelic, what are the words for ‘and’?

4 Look again at the questions in Exercise 1. Were your answers correct?

Money

UK the pound (sterling)

Say: ‘a pound’ Write: £1

Republic of Ireland the euro

OFFICIALLANGUAGESOFTHEUK

Mainlanguage MinoritylanguagesEnglish Welsh (Wales)

Gaelic (Ireland, Scotland)Cornish (Cornwall)

English Welsh ScotsGaelic Cornish

Good morning!How are you?

Very well, thanks. And you?

Bore da!Sut rydych chi?Da iawn, diolch.

A chi?

Madainn mhath!Ciamar a tha thu?

Tha gu math, tapadh leat.Agus thusa?

Myttin da!Fatla genes?

Yn poynt da, meur rasta.Ha ty?

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CULTURE

Headway Culture and Literature CompanionPre-IntermediateHeadway Culture and Literature CompanionPre-Intermediate

Public holidays in the USA10 CULTURE

What do you think?▶ Which official holidays in your

own country are similar to the American holidays?

▶ If you could create a new official holiday for your country, what would it be and why?

Project

Writeapageforawebsiteaboutyourcountry,givingreadersalistofthepublicholidays,withshortdescriptionsofwhattheyareandhowtheybegan.

1 When are the public holidays in your country? What do they celebrate?

2 Public holidays are of particular importance in the USA as most workers only get two weeks holiday a year.Some start on only one week a year.

Match the public holidays in the USA to the descriptions.

3 Try to work out the meaning of these words and phrases from their contexts. 1 to honour 2 settlers 3 harvest 4 landing 5 creation 6 sacrifices 7 armed forces 8 a day off 9 assassinated 10 speech 11 brotherhood 12 graves

4 Answer the questions. 1 Why was the Roman god Janus

important to the celebration of New Year?

2 Who was Martin Luther King? 3 Who is known as the father of

the USA? 4 Which war took place in

America in the 1860s? 5 What happened in 1776? 6 When does the new school year

start in the USA? 7 When did Columbus reach the

Americas? 8 Who do people remember on

Veterans’ Day? 9 What was the reason for the

first Thanksgiving celebration? 10 Why don’t some Americans

say ‘Happy Christmas’ to each other?

* Labor is the American spelling of labour.

c This celebrates the great explorer’s landing in the New World in 1492. However, not everybody thinks that it should be a cause for celebration. Some say that there were already people living in ‘the New World’, so how could he have ‘discovered’ it? Others believe that he was not the first explorer to arrive there. And there are those who ask why we should honour a man who was responsible for genocide and slavery.

i This holiday celebrates the birth of Jesus. However, there is a big argument in America about whether this time of year should be officially celebrated as a Christian festival, because Christianity is only one among many religions. In public, Americans will often wish each other ‘Happy holidays’, rather than referring to the festival by name.

a This holiday officially celebrates the birthday of the man who led America to victory in the War of Independence. He was the first President of the USA. It is sometimes called Presidents’ Day, to honour all the great American leaders.

f This day remembers all the men and women who have served in the country’s armed forces in times of war and peace.

j This began in 1868 as a day when people went to the graves of soldiers who died in the American Civil War (1861-1865) to put flowers on them. Later it became a holiday dedicated to all war dead.

e This day has its origins in ancient Roman times, when people offered cakes and wine to Janus, the two-faced Roman god of doors and gates, who looked back on the past and forward to the future. The month of January (Latin: Januarius) is named after him. Today, the focus of the celebrations is Times Square, New York.

b In 1621 English settlers in Massachusetts had a special meal to celebrate their first harvest after a long hard winter. They sat down together with the Wampanoag Indians, who had helped them survive their first year. Today it’s one of the major celebrations in the USA and Canada. Families travel hundreds of miles to share the traditional dinner of roast turkey followed by pumpkin pie.

d This day celebrates the end of British colonial rule in 1776 and the creation of the United States of America.

g This day was originally ‘a day off for the working man’ in 1882, and it became an official holiday in the whole of the USA in 1894. It also marks the end of the summer holiday season as the new school year starts the following day.

h This holiday honours the civil rights leader who was assassinated by a gunman on April 4th in 1968. He demanded equal rights for black Americans. His most famous speech included the line: “I have a dream that the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will sit together at the table of brotherhood.” His birthday was January 15th. It has been a federal holiday since 1986.

New Year’s Day

January

1st

eMartin Luther

King Day

The third Monday inJanuary

Washington’s Birthday

The third Monday inFebruary

Memorial Day

The last Monday in

May

Independence Day

July

4th

Labor* Day

The first Monday in

September

Columbus Day

The second Monday inOctober

Veterans’ Day

November

11th

Thanksgiving

The fourth Thursday inNovember

Christmas Day

December

25th

Headway Culture and Literature Companion Pre-Intermediate

CULTURE

29Headway Culture and Literature CompanionIntermediate28 Headway Culture and Literature CompanionIntermediate

Australia: Going to live Down Under8B

1 What do you know about Australia? Complete the paragraph with these words and numbers.

harbour 19 coral 7.6 outback 32 marsupials 2,600 monolith 348

2 For over 200 years, people have emigrated to Australia. Which of 1–6, do you think, are reasons why many people went to live there?1 to become sheep farmers2 to fish in the seas 3 to find gold4 to find jobs5 to convert people to their religion 6 to serve prison sentences

Now read the text quickly to check your answers.

3 Read the text more carefully and answer the questions.1 Who were the first people to live in Australia?

Where did they come from?2 What did early Dutch explorers think of Australia?3 Why did the British decide to colonize it?4 What factors attracted settlers in the 19th century?5 How did the settlers treat the Aboriginal people?6 Why did Australia bring in language tests for

immigrants?7 How did Australia encourage European

immigration after World War 2? 8 Where have more immigrants come from recently?

Why?

What do you think?▶ What do you think are the factors, apart from work,

that attract people to Australia nowadays? ▶ Would you like to live there? Why? / Why not? ▶ How should people treat the original inhabitants of

countries they settle in?

Project

Ingroups,imagineyouhaveestablishedanewcountryonanisland.Whatwouldyourimmigrationpoliciesbe?Thinkaboutthefollowingoptionsandwriteaspeechexplainingyourcountry’simmigrationpolicy.Giveyourspeechestotheclassandseewhichpolicygetsthemostvotes.1 onlyallowinpeoplewhohaveskillsthatareneededontheisland

2 onlyallowinpeoplefromyourcountryofbirth,orwhospeakyourlanguage

3 allowincertainnumbersofpeopleofdifferentages,professions,salaries,etc

4 allowinanybodywhowasunemployedorlivinginpovertyintheirowncountry

5 onlyallowinpeoplewhohaveartisticorothercreativetalents

6 allowinanybodywhowantstoliveontheisland

With a land mass of roughly (1) million km2, Australia is (2) times larger than the United Kingdom, but with a population of only about (3) million people.Australia is famous for its landmarks of natural beauty, such as the Great Barrier Reef, which at (4) kilometres is the world’s biggest (5) reef – and also the largest living organism on Earth. The hot, dry interior of the country is known as the (6) , and right in the middle is Ayer’s Rock, or Uluru, the world’s biggest (7) . This huge red rock stands (8) metres in height, and is a sacred site to the aboriginal people. Australia is also known for its unusual animals, including (9) such as kangaroos, which carry their young in pouches. Sydney, the biggest city, has the world’s largest natural (10) , crossed by the famous bridge facing its unique opera house.

4 Match these words from the text with their meanings.

1 soil 7 fortune

2 claimed 8 conflict

3 inhospitable 9 brutally

4 settlement 10 deported

5 overcrowded 11 policy

6 convicts 12 monocultural

a with too many people inside b consisting of people of only one race, language, or

religion c land d forced to leave a country, by law e a place where people have come to live f people who have been found guilty of a crime g said to belong to you h plan of action chosen by a government or company i a very large amount of money j unpleasant to live in k fighting l with great violence and crueltyThe word ‘aboriginal’ means ‘from the beginning’, and the Aborigines were

indeed the original inhabitants of Australia. They themselves were once immigrants, originally from Africa, and first settled in Australia over 42,000 years ago.

The first ship to land Europeans on Australian soil, the Eendracht, was Dutch, and arrived there in 1616. In 1642 another Dutch explorer, Abel Tasman, discovered the island we now call Tasmania. However, the Dutch did not think that the land they called ‘New Holland’ was worth formally occupying, and it wasn’t until 1770 that it was officially claimed for Britain by Captain James Cook. Britain formally colonized the area in 1786, calling it New South Wales. The British were mainly interested in this seemingly inhospitable land because it was an ideal place to start a new prison settlement. Britain was suffering from overcrowded prisons at home, having lost their prison colonies in the United States after the War of Independence.

In 1788, the first fleet of 11 ships and 1,350 people (the majority of them convicts) arrived in Australia at Sydney Cove. From about 1815 the colony began to grow. Although the journey from Europe took over a year and was very difficult, people began to hear that Australia wasn’t just a prison colony, but also a fine place for anyone to make a fresh start in life, and that some people were making a fortune there from the free land they could use for sheep farming. In 1850 the discovery of gold attracted many more Europeans – 2% of the population of Britain and Ireland moved to Australia during the following Gold Rush.

Inevitably there was increased conflict with the Aborigines, who were brutally hunted and poisoned by the settlers. Aboriginal children were taken away from their parents to be educated by white people. Australians had also been alarmed by the numbers of Chinese immigrants during the Gold Rush, and the White Australia Policy was established in 1901 to restrict non-white settlers. Any new immigrant had to pass a dictation test in a European

language chosen by the immigration officer, and if the immigrants were seen as unwelcome, it was easy to choose a language they didn’t know. The most famous case was in 1934, when Egon Kisch, a left-wing Czechoslovakian journalist, tried to enter Australia. He could speak five languages, but failed a test in Scottish Gaelic, and was deported as illiterate!

After World War II, as its economy expanded, Australia established a huge immigration programme. More than two million Europeans emigrated to Australia between 1945 and 1965 to escape post-war poverty and unemployment. Most of them came from Britain and Ireland, but there were also large numbers arriving from the Netherlands, Germany, Greece, Italy, Yugoslavia, and Turkey. The Australian government helped many of them financially by paying for their journey and giving them somewhere to live until they found a job. The White Australia Policy ended in 1973, and this greatly changed the character of Australian society, which became much less conservative and monocultural. Later waves of immigration have brought the total number of settlers since 1945 to nearly 7 million, with a recent increase in those arriving from Asia.

Immigration to Australia

The Immigrants’ Ship 1884, by John Charles Dollman

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LITERATURE

Headway Culture and Literature CompanionUpper-IntermediateHeadway Culture and Literature CompanionUpper-Intermediate

Louis MacNeice – Prayer Before Birth5B

What do you think?▶ What do you most like, or dislike, about Prayer

Before Birth? Why? Why is it so effective to put these words into the mouth of an unborn child?

▶ Do you think the fears of the unborn child in the poem are still relevant today? Why? Why not?

▶ What fears about today’s world could be added now?

▶ What might people fear most in 10, 20 and 50 years from now? Why?

Project

Chooseapoemornovelthatmakespredictionsorexpressesfearsaboutthefuture.Usetheworkitself,theInternetorliteraturetextbookstofindoutmoreaboutit.Writeareviewofitforyourschoollibrary,includingthefollowing:•whenandwhereitwaswritten,andbywhom•itsvisionofthefuture,andhowitdoesthis•howlikelyyoufeelthisvisionistobecomereality

1 What are people you know most afraid of ? Why? What kinds of things are children often scared of? What frightened you as a child?

2 Read this text about the 20th century poet Louis MacNeice, filling in the gaps with these words:

fears producer masterpiece lecturer totalitarianism height death

playwright dictator democracy

4 Answer the questions. 1 When the baby says ‘O hear me’, who might

he/she be addressing? 2 What are the childhood fears in the first

stanza? What effect do the monosyllabic nouns give the sound of the poem?

3 What, in the second stanza, does the child fear will happen to him/her in life? What is the connection with world events at the time the poem was written?

4 The poet uses alliteration – the same sound or letter in words that are close together – in tall walls wall. Find more examples of this in the second stanza.

5 What kind of things does the child ask for in the third stanza? Why might they be difficult to provide?

6 What does the child fear being forced to do in the modern world?

7 Find a metaphor at the beginning of the fifth stanza. What does it mean?

8 Find three example of personification (describing objects as if they were human) in the fifth stanza. What is their overall meaning? What impression of human life is given in this stanza?

9 Who might the people referred to in the last stanza be?

10 How does the rhythm and the repetitive style of the poem add to the message?

Prayer Before Birth

3 This extract from Prayer Before Birth has six stanzas. Quickly read the poem and match summaries A–F with each one.A a plea for the good things in lifeB a plea for evil people to stay away from him/herC a plea for forgiveness for all the terrible things the

world will make him/her doD a plea to be saved from real and imaginary fears

of the nightE a plea for guidance on what to do in life and how

to react to othersF a plea for sympathy for all the terrible things that

society might do to him/her

Louis MacNeice, the Anglo-Irish poet and (1) , was born in 1907. He studied

at Oxford and went on to work as a (2) in classics, before taking a position with the BBC as a writer and (3) of radio programmes. In 1939 he was in Barcelona, shortly before the fall of the city to the (4) Franco and his Fascist troops at the end of the Spanish Civil War, and wrote Autumn Journal – considered by many to be his (5) . The rise of the Nazis in Germany and the attacks on (6) elsewhere led to his strong opposition to (7) becoming a powerful theme of his work. This can be seen in Prayer Before Birth, written at the (8) of the Second World War, in which the poet describes the (9) of an unborn child. MacNeice continued working for the BBC for many years after, almost until his (10) in 1963.

I am not yet born; O hear me.Let not the bloodsucking bat or the rat or the stoat or the club-footed ghoul come near me.

I am not yet born, console me.I fear that the human race may with tall walls wall me, with strong drugs dope me, with wise lies lure me, on black racks rack me, in blood-baths roll me.

I am not yet born; provide meWith water to dandle me, grass to grow for me, trees to talk to me, sky to sing to me, birds and a white light in the back of my mind to guide me.

I am not yet born; forgive meFor the sins that in me the world shall commit, my words when they speak me, my thoughts when they think me, my treason engendered by traitors beyond me, my life when they murder by means of my hands, my death when they live me.

I am not yet born; rehearse meIn the parts I must play and the cues I must take when old men lecture me, bureaucrats hector me, mountains frown at me, lovers laugh at me, the white waves call me to folly and the desert calls me to doom and the beggar refuses my gift and my children curse me.

I am not yet born; O hear me,Let not the man who is beast or who thinks he is God come near me.

Louis MacNeice

Headway Culture and Literature Companion Upper-Intermediate