Date: April 5, 2005
Level: Pre-Intermediate +
Downloads: This Lesson (Word Doc) | Class Handout (Word Doc) | Class Handout (PDF)

THE ARTICLE

Prince Charles has postponed his wedding by a day so he can attend the Pope’s funeral. He has decided to go to the Vatican as the Queen’s representative. He will be joined by Tony Blair and George W. Bush, but not by his fiancée Camilla. A spokesman for the Prince said: “It is expected that the arrangements will be largely the same as previously planned” and that “The wedding is still going to be a good day". He added that the majority of invited guests would still attend the wedding on Saturday. The Queen will not be at the wedding, neither will Sweden’s 27-year-old Crown Princess Victoria, who has decided to open an Ikea store in Japan instead.

The wedding delay has created additional problems. Gold and silver commemorative coins, some of which will sell for $890, have to be changed to the new date of April 9. Luckily, tens of thousands of the coins were to have been issued today with the original date of April 8, so news of the delay came just in time. However, the delay is a headache for souvenir sellers who have already stocked up on memorabilia with the original wedding date. An added twist came yesterday when the British Government announced that Camilla would become Princess of Wales, the title once held by Princess Diana.

WARM UPS

1. CHAT: Talk in pairs or groups about Prince Charles / wedding days / Camilla / Ikea / commemorative coins / souvenirs / Princess of Wales.

To encourage more conversation, try telling your students they only have a short time on each chat topic before changing topics / partners.

2. PRINCE CHARLES BRAINSTORM: Spend one minute writing down all of the different words you associate with Prince Charles. Share your words with your partner / group and talk about them.

3. ROYAL WEDDINGS: In pairs / groups, talk about royal weddings. Are you interested in Prince Charles’ wedding or other British royal weddings? How about important weddings in your own country? Would you like to attend a royal wedding? Talk about which weddings would be / would have been good from this list:

1. Charles and Camilla
2. Japan’s Princess Masako marrying Yasuyuki Kitano
3. King Mswati III of Swaziland marrying wife number thirteen
4. Denmark’s Crown Prince Frederik marrying Australian Mary Donaldson
5. Haji Al-Muhtadee Billah, Crown Prince of Brunei, marrying Paduka Seri

4. CHARLES’ WEDDING OPINIONS: Look at this list of opinions about Prince Charles’ wedding. Tell your partner/group what you think of each opinion:

1. I think it’s wonderful Charles is marrying again.
2. Camilla should never become Princess of Wales. Only Princess Diana deserves that title.
3. I want to know why the British Queen is staying away from her own son’s wedding.
4. Another boring British royal wedding. Who cares?
5. I think Charles did the right thing in postponing his wedding for the Pope’s funeral.
6. I’d rather open an Ikea store in Japan than attend Charles and Camilla’s wedding.
7. I feel sorry for the poor souvenir sellers who have lots of April 8 souvenirs.
8. This wedding is the latest in a long line of foolish things Prince Charles has done.
9. True love is true love. Charles and Camilla will live happily ever after.
10. I can’t believe someone would buy a stupid royal wedding coin for nearly $900.

PRE-READING IDEAS

1. WORD SEARCH: Students look in their dictionaries / computer to find collocates, other meanings, information, synonyms … of the words ‘good’ and ‘day’.

2. TRUE / FALSE: Look at the headline and guess whether these sentences are true or false:

1. Prince Charles has postponed his wedding by a week.  T / F
2. Prince Charles and his fiancée Camilla will attend the Pope’s funeral.  T / F
3. The British Queen will not attend Prince Charles’ wedding.  T / F
4. A Swedish Princess will open an Ikea store in Japan instead of attending Charles’ wedding.  T / F
5. The wedding delay has created additional problems.  T / F
6. Tens of thousands of royal coins have been issued with the date of February 8.  T / F
7. Many souvenir sellers in Britain suffer from bad headaches.  T / F
8. Britain’s Government announced that Camilla would become Princess of Wales.  T / F

3. SYNONYM MATCH: Match the following synonyms from the article:

(a)	postponed	opted
(b)	representative	problem
(c)	fiancée	souvenirs
(d)	arrangements	extra
(e)	decided	proxy
(f)	commemorative	schedule
(g)	additional	celebratory
(h)	headache	put back
(i)	memorabilia	development
(j)	twist	wife-to-be

4. PHRASE MATCH: Match the following phrases from the article (sometimes more than one combination is possible):

(a)	postponed his wedding	guests
(b)	attend	twist
(c)	largely	coins
(d)	invited	thousands
(e)	created additional	the same
(f)	commemorative	just in time
(g)	tens of	by a day
(h)	news of the delay came	up
(i)	stocked	problems
(j)	an added	the Pope’s funeral

 

WHILE READING ACTIVITIES

1. GAP-FILL: Put the missing words under each paragraph into the gaps.

Pope’s funeral delays Prince Charles’ wedding

Prince Charles has __________ his wedding by a day so he can __________ the Pope’s funeral. He has decided to go to the Vatican as the Queen’s representative. He will be joined by Tony Blair and George W. Bush, but not by his fiancée Camilla. A spokesman for the Prince said: “It is expected that the arrangements will be __________ the same as previously planned” and that “The wedding is still going to be a good day". He added that the __________ of invited guests would still attend the wedding on Saturday. The Queen will not be at the wedding, __________ will Sweden’s 27-year-old Crown Princess Victoria, who has decided to open an Ikea store in Japan instead.		majority attend largely neither postponed
The wedding delay has __________ additional problems. Gold and silver commemorative coins, some of which will sell for $890, have to be changed to the new date of April 9. Luckily, tens of thousands of the coins were to have been issued today with the __________ date of April 8, so news of the delay came __________ in time. However, the delay is a headache for souvenir sellers who have already __________ up on memorabilia with the original wedding date. An added twist came yesterday when the British Government announced that Camilla would become Princess of Wales, the __________ once held by Princess Diana.		original created stocked title just

2. TRUE/FALSE: Students check their answers to the T/F exercise.

3. SYNONYMS: Students check their answers to the synonyms exercise.

4. PHRASE MATCH: Students check their answers to the phrase match exercise.

5. QUESTIONS: Students make notes for questions they would like to ask the class about the article.

6. VOCABULARY: Students circle any words they do not understand. In groups, pool unknown words and use dictionaries to find the meanings.

POST READING IDEAS

1. GAP-FILL: Check the answers to the gap-fill exercise.

2. QUESTIONS: Students ask the discussion questions they thought of above to their partner / group / class. Pool the questions for all students to share.

3. VOCABULARY: As a class, go over the vocabulary students circled above.

4. STUDENT-GENERATED SURVEY: Pairs/Groups write down 3 questions based on the article. Conduct their surveys alone. Report back to partners to compare answers. Report to other groups / the whole class.

5. ‘HAPPY’ / ‘DAY’: Students make questions based on their findings from pre-reading activity #1.

6. DISCUSSION:

1. What was interesting in this article?
2. Were you surprised by anything in this article?
3. What do you think of Prince Charles?
4. Do you think he is a good symbol of Britishness?
5. Would you prefer to see Charles or his son William become king?
6. Are you interested in royalty?
7. What do you know about Charles’ wife-to-be Camilla?
8. Should Camilla go to the Pope’s funeral with her husband-to-be?
9. Why do you think the British Queen is staying away from Charles’ wedding?
10. Would you rather open an Ikea store in Japan than attend Charles and Camilla’s wedding?
11. Do you like weddings?
12. Do you agree with the idea of having a royal family?
13. Would you like a near-$900 gold coin commemorating Prince Charles’ wedding?
14. Should Camilla become Princess of Wales?
15. What did / do you think of Princess Diana?
16. Did you like this discussion?
17. Teacher / Student additional questions.

HOMEWORK

1. VOCABULARY EXTENSION: Choose several of the words from the text. Use a dictionary or Google’s search field (or another search engine) to build up more associations / collocations of each word.

2. INTERNET: Search the Internet and find information on IKEA. Share your findings with your class next lesson.

3. ROYALS: Make a poster about the different royal families around the world. Show your poster to your classmates in your next class.

4. ROYAL NEWS: Imagine you are a journalist at Prince Charles’ wedding. Write a short article for your local newspaper describing the wedding.

ANSWERS

TRUE / FALSE:

1. Prince Charles has postponed his wedding by a week.  F
2. Prince Charles and his fiancée Camilla will attend the Pope’s funeral.  F
3. The British Queen will not attend Prince Charles’ wedding.  T
4. A Swedish Princess will open an Ikea store in Japan instead of attending Charles’ wedding.  T
5. The wedding delay has created additional problems.  T
6. Tens of thousands of royal coins have been issued with the date of February 8.  F
7. Many souvenir sellers in Britain suffer from bad headaches.  F
8. Britain’s Government announced that Camilla would become Princess of Wales.  T

SYNONYM MATCH:

(a)	postponed	put back
(b)	representative	proxy
(c)	fiancée	wife-to-be
(d)	arrangements	schedule
(e)	decided	opted
(f)	commemorative	celebratory
(g)	additional	extra
(h)	headache	problem
(i)	memorabilia	souvenirs
(j)	twist	development

PHRASE MATCH:

(a)	postponed his wedding	by a day
(b)	attend	the Pope’s funeral
(c)	largely	the same
(d)	invited	guests
(e)	created additional	problems
(f)	commemorative	coins
(g)	tens of	thousands
(h)	news of the delay came	just in time
(i)	stocked	up
(j)	an added	twist

GAP FILL:

Pope’s funeral delays Prince Charles’ wedding

Prince Charles has postponed his wedding by a day so he can attend the Pope’s funeral. He has decided to go to the Vatican as the Queen’s representative. He will be joined by Tony Blair and George W. Bush, but not by his fiancée Camilla. A spokesman for the Prince said: “It is expected that the arrangements will be largely the same as previously planned” and that “The wedding is still going to be a good day". He added that the majority of invited guests would still attend the wedding on Saturday. The Queen will not be at the wedding, neither will Sweden’s 27-year-old Crown Princess Victoria, who has decided to open an Ikea store in Japan instead.

The wedding delay has created additional problems. Gold and silver commemorative coins, some of which will sell for $890, have to be changed to the new date of April 9. Luckily, tens of thousands of the coins were to have been issued today with the original date of April 8, so news of the delay came just in time. However, the delay is a headache for souvenir sellers who have already stocked up on memorabilia with the original wedding date. An added twist came yesterday when the British Government announced that Camilla would become Princess of Wales, the title once held by Princess Diana.

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