Two Articles on Modern Day Piracy – English Effective Communication. English ESL Worksheets to improve reading and develop strong language and Speaking skills.
Two Articles on Modern Day Piracy – English Effective Communication
Two Articles on Modern Day Piracy – English Effective Communication
Procedure
Divide the class into pairs. Give each student a copy of either the A or B reading sheets. The students read the short articles silently by themselves and use a dictionary or consult the teacher if they don’t understand a word or phrase. After the students have read and understood the articles, the teacher takes the articles away. Then student A will communicate what was in A’s article to student B, and student B will communicate what was in B’s article to A. Then all of the students take a test to see how much information they were able to communicate.
| Modern Day Pirates When people think of pirates, they usually imagine one-eyed men with beards and swords fighting over buried treasure. But even in this age of satellites and instant communication, pirates still attack ships on the high seas. The worst areas for piracy are the coasts of South America, South East Asia, and Africa. Modern pirates are usually armed with machine guns, speedboats, and mobile phones. Usually, a speedboat loaded with pirates will follow a freighter where an insider has been planted. The insider gives them important details about location of the ship and the ship’s cargo. Often, the pirates go straight to the captain’s safe, which usually contains thousands of dollars in cash. The pirates preferred cargo is tin, oil, and aluminum. Usually, the heist is well-planned in advance on land. As soon as the ship is successfully boarded, a deal is made to exchange the cargo for money. After the ship is boarded, sometimes the crew is left unharmed. However, sometimes the crew is kidnapped, or worse, murdered like the 23 crew members of the Hong Kong ship, the Cheung Son. | Stopping Piracy on the High Seas In November 1998, Chinese fishermen found the body of a person who was tied up and weighted down with metal. His mouth was taped over. He was one of the 23 crew members of the Hong Kong ship, the Cheung Son. The Cheung Son had been missing for weeks. It had been attacked by modern day pirates. The pirates were caught by Chinese police when the police happened to find the photos on one of the pirates by chance. In the photos, the pirates were partying among the dead crew members. Although the pirates were arrested and later executed, the ship was never found. Surprisingly, there are still hundreds of pirate attacks every year. In fact piracy has been increasing recently. Some people suggest that the best way to stop piracy is to put armed guards on freighters. Others argue that having armed guards on board will just cause the pirates to react more violently. Others suggest that we need more patrols from national coast guards to stop pirates. The problem is that pirates slip in and out of national waters, where authorities can’t follow. To solve this problem, there needs to be more cooperation between countries so that pirates can’t use any country’s waters as a safe haven. |
Two Articles on Modern Day Piracy
| Modern Day Pirates (1) What is the title of the article? (2) How do people imagine pirates? (3) What are the worst areas? (4) How are modern pirates usually armed? (5) How do pirates attack a freighter? (6) What is usually on the freighter? (7) How does the insider help them? (8) Where do the pirates often go first? (9) What is the pirates preferred cargo? (10) What happens as soon as the ship is boarded? (11) What happens to the crew? | Stopping Piracy on the High Seas(1) What is the title of the article? (2) What happened in November 1998? (3) What was over the corpse’s mouth? (4) Who was the person? (5) How long had the ship been missing? (6) How did the police catch the pirates? (7) What were the pirates doing in the picture? (8) What happened to the pirates? (9) How many pirate attacks are there every year? (10) What do some people suggest doing to stop pirates? (11) What is the problem with this solution? (12) What do other people suggest? (13) Why do coast guards have problems catching pirates? |
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