The weekly column

Article 91, March 2002

FORTUNE

By Michael Berman

Level: Upper Intermediate - Advanced

Target Audience: Adults

Language / Skills Focus: Listening & Speaking

Materials: An OHT with the pre-question for the learners to focus on while listening to the tale. If an OHP is unavailable, this can be boarded before the start of the lesson instead. Photocopies of the worksheet. Photocopies of the story (optional) to hand out at the end of the session.

IN CLASS

1. Pre-listening: Which of these statements best sums up the message of the tale? If none of the statements seem to be appropriate, then find one of your own:

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
It's a dog's life.
There's no peace for the wicked
Let sleeping dogs lie.
Where there's a will there's a way.
Crime doesn't pay

2. While-listening: Pause after the words ' He had just got close when suddenly .....' and ask the learners to predict what happened next.

3. Pause after the words "Who are you? What sort of creature are you and why are you lying about here?" and ask the students to predict the answer.

4. Post-listening: Match the numbers on the left with the letters on the right to find explanations for the new vocabulary.

ANSWERS: 1-o 2-k 3-e 4-q 5-n 6-s 7-d 8-f 9-l 10-r 11-i 12-a 13-m 14-p 15-j 16-h 17-c 18-g 19-b

5. Fill in the gaps with words from the story.

ANSWERS: 1. blamed 2. habit 3. ploughed 4. envy 5. stand ..... feet 6. dozed 7. rewarded 8. sets 9. skin ..... bone 10. moan ..... groan

COMMENTS

Fortune has been adapted from a story in Georgian Folk Tales translated by D.G.Hunt (Merani Publishing House Tbilisi 1999) The story can be used as a lead-in to the Topic of Work.

FORTUNE

It happened or it did not happen - in a certain land there lived a cattle-breeder. He was honest, hardworking, and he never offended anybody. All his animals grazed contentedly without being watched, and neither beast nor man hurt them, since he had no enemies.

In that same land lived a certain lazybones and idler. He did not do anything. While others were working, he was sleeping, so that he lived in poverty and only blamed it on his fate.

So one day that cattle-breeder met him. He greeted the poor man and asked, "how's life with you, friend?"

"What sort of life do I have?", he began to moan and groan, "I'm dying of hunger".

"Let's go to my place", said the cattle-breeder. "Work for me for a year and I'll give you a pair of good oxen. Then you can plough and sow your own field, and you'll be satisfied".

The idler thought, "Why work for him to overstrain myself for a pair of oxen? I might as well help myself and just take whatever I want. They say that the cattle even graze without being watched; so who's going to stop me?"

He climbed into the mountains, and he saw the cattle scattered across the land, but of herdsmen, there was none. He looked at this wealth, and his heart became just sick with envy. He had just got close when suddenly something began to ring, and all the animals started to run to the other side of the meadow where they gathered together in one place.

The idler also approached. He saw, standing in the middle of the cattle, a tiny little man. And the cows and sheep were gathered all around him. Some licked his face, some his hand, and he caressed them and stroked their hair.

The idler was surprised, and he asked, "Who are you? What sort of creature are you? Where have you been and where did you suddenly appear from?"

"I'm the fortune of the master of this herd", says the little man. "However, I also look after all his cattle, and I don't let anybody disturb them".

"And where then is my fortune?", asked the poor man.

"Your fortune can be found on such and such a mountain under such and such a bush", says this little man.

"And will I find my fortune if I go there?"

"Why ever shouldn't you find him, certainly you'll find him!", said the little man.

Somehow the idler got to the mountain indicated. He searched and searched for his fortune, but no way could he find it. He got tired, and he lay down in distress under a tree and dozed off. He slept through really soundly and when he woke up the sun was already setting. Suddenly he heard somebody sighing. He got up and looked: "Who is it sighing like that?" He saw, lying under bush, a little man: just skin and bone. He was lying there, groaning, and sighing.

"Who are you? What sort of creature are you and why are you lying about here?", asked the idler.

"But I'm your fortune", said the little man.

"Ach, you, lazybones!", the idler said angrily. "Whatever sort of fortune are you to me if all you do is lie here and groan? I'm dying of hunger, and you make a habit of lying down; and as for thinking about me, you don't think at all."

"You're a good man", said this fortune. "You lie down and sleep, and I lie down and sleep. You sit and do nothing, and I do even more so. Get up and make some effort! Do some work, and I'll reward you. And your life will change for the better"

So the poor man finally got the message and began to work. And for the first time in his life he stood on his own two feet. He got married, started a family of his own and began to live free of cares.

WORKSHEET: FORTUNE

Match the numbers on the left with the letters on the right to find explanations for the new vocabulary:

Fill in the gaps with words from the story:

1. I apologised for being late for work again and blamed it on the traffic.
2. You seem to make a habit of turning up late and I'm getting rather tired of it!
3. The farmer ploughed the field then planted it with corn.
4. When I see how much money some people earn it makes me turn green with envy.
5. It's time you stopped turning to your parents for help and learnt how to _____ on your own two _____.
6. I found the lecture so boring that I actually dozed off in the middle and apparently I started snoring!
7. Nobody minds working hard as long as they get rewarded for their efforts.
8. Once the sun sets behind the mountains, the temperature drops considerably and it gets rather chilly.
9. Look at you - you're just _____ and _____! You need to eat more.
10. When foreigners come to England, they always _____ and _____ about three things - English food, English weather, and how unfriendly English people are.

About the Author

Michael Berman is a freelance teacher and writer. Publications include the Build Your Vocabulary series for LTP, A Multiple Intelligences Road to an ELT Classroom and The Power of Metaphor for Crown House Publishing. Activating ELT Through Multiple Intelligences, an electronic publication, is available online at www.netlearnpublications.com and Once Upon A Story from Wida Software. The Storyteller Resource Pack and Intelligence Reframed for ELT are available on CD-ROM from TheGolemPress@aol.com. Michael has been involved in TESOL for thirty years and has given presentations at Conferences in Austria, the Czech Republic, Cyprus, France, Georgia, Germany, Italy, Poland, Romania, Russia, Spain, Turkey, and the Ukraine.

Contact: 60 Loveridge Road, London NW6 2DT E-mail: Michaelberman60@aol.com Website: www.thestoryteller.org.uk

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