Розробка уроку по темі "London Fire"

I. Read the text.

The old city of London in Shakespeare’s times was very dirty because people threw the rubbish away though the windows into streets. Rats and dogs lived in that debris. That’s why epidermises often happened. Streets were narrow and crooked. Houses were build close to each other and they were made of wood. Sometimes there were small fires.

But on September 2nd in 1666 there was a big fire that caught a larger part of the city. It started in the house of the King’s baker, in Pudding Lane, near London Bridge. A young baker left a piece of wood at night not far from the hot cooker. In few hours the fire started.

After a long hot summer the wooden houses were very dry. A strong wind had begun some days before, it was blowing from the river. It blew the flames from house to house and soon all the wooden buildings in the narrow streets were on fire that was spreading very quickly.

People couldn’t get water to put the fire down because the fire had ruined the water wheel. People run to the river to save their lives. There were a lot of pigeons in London in those days. They did not want to leave their nests on the roofs and flew about the windows until their wings got burnt and they fell down dead.

In four days the wind stopped and with it the fire stopped, too.

The fire burnt for four days and destroyed 80% of the city. 3,000 houses and 89 churches disappeared. Amazingly, nobody died in the fire.

The people of London built a new city. The houses were made of brick or stone not wood. The streets were straight and wider, and clean too. Sir Christopher Wren rebuilt St. Paul’s Cathedral.

II. Here is a page from a tourist guidebook. But a lot of it is wrong. Say what is wrong.

III. A) Why do you think the fire spread so quickly?

B) Why wasn’t there another big fire after 1666?

IV. Complete the story: fill in the gaps.

The Plague and the Great Fire of London.

The population of London 1) ______ 1665 was about 250,000 2) _____. It was the largest 3) _____ in Europe. But the 4) _____ were very close together, 4) _____ the houses were made 5)_____ wood. There were many fires in 6) _____ old city.

London was 7) _____ dirty city. People threw 8) _____ into the streets. Dogs and rats 9) _____ the rubbish. The River 10) _____ was an open sewer. It smelt 11) _____. Sickness spread quickly. In 1665 people 12) _____ to die from a disease 13) _____ the bubonic plague. Thousands of people 14) _____ from the disease. Doctors did not 15) _____ how the disease spread.

There was a great 16) _____ in the following year. The Great Fire of London started in a 17) _____. It lasted for four 18) _____, from 2^nd September 1666. 19) _____ destroyed almost all of the 20) _____ city. Over 13, 000 houses were 21) _____. Over 100,000 people became 22) _____, but very few people died in the fire.

After the fire, London was a 23) _____ place – for a short time.

V. The fire has finally stopped and a reporter is talking to some people about the fire. Here are the questions below. Listen to the record and write down the answers.

- What’s your name?

- What do you do?

- What were you doing when the fire started?

- What did you do when the fire started?

- What do you know about the fire?

- What will you do?

VI. A disaster in your town.

Write about a disaster in your town: fire / flood / earthquake / etc.

Write:

- What happened?

- How did it start?

- When did it happen?

- Did the disaster destroy any buildings?

- Were there any other losses?