O R A L P R A C T I C E Lessons 1 - 25 - Shenker

OP 16 - FILL IN THE BLANKS - "Make" and "do"
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"Make" and "do": GN 16.3 ("I'm trying to make dinner" / "What are they doing?")
Read as for an AC, pausing at the slash marks (/). DON'T say the missing verb - leave an "audible
blank". The students (singly, or in chorus) repeat the phrase in question (not necessarily the whole previous
sentence), inserting the missing verb. (Do a second round à la Gapfill?)
Laura and Maurizio are very busy people.
Last Friday, Maurizio stayed at the office UNTIL eight p.m. He had to work late - he had to … [do] a lot
of work. / First of all, he had to … [do] some accounts. / Last month, his boss … [made] a mistake in
the accounts, / and Maurizio had to … [do] them again. / He also had to … [make] an important telephone
call, to Seattle. / He … [made] the call at seven p.m. / It was ten a.m. in Seattle, because there's
a difference of nine hours between Italy and the west coast of the United States. He had to speak
English on the telephone, but this was not a problem because Maurizio speaks English very well. In
fact, he studies at the Shenker Institute. He … [did] his Written Test number 88 last week! / So he …
[made] a good impression on the phone. / Then he … [made] a call to Laura. / "What are you …
[doing], Laura?" / "I'm … [making] your dinner, Maurizio. / And I'm … [doing] my English homework."
/ They always speak English on the phone - it's good practice.
At seven o'clock, in fact, Laura always … [does] her English homework. / She's also studying English
at the Shenker Institute, and she tries to … [do] an hour of homework every day. / Last Friday evening
she … [did] her dictation for lesson 16. / Unfortunately, she … [made] a lot of mistakes, / and she had
to … [do] the dictation again. / She's … [making] progress with her English, / slowly but surely, / but
she's having some problems with dictation. Last week, in class, she … [did] Written Test 19 and Oral
Test 15. / Now she has to … [do] her Level Exam. / She has to … [do] the Lex / before she can …
[do] her next lesson.
On Saturday morning Laura … [did] the shopping at her local supermarket. / She bought a lot of
food, including two kilos of green apples. She wanted to … [make] an apple pie for Maurizio. /
Saturday was his birthday, and he loves apple pie. Then she came home and … [made] lunch. / She
usually … [makes] pasta for lunch, / but on Saturday she wasn't very hungry, and Maurizio was at the
office, so she just … [made] a ham sandwich. / In the afternoon she … [made] the apple pie. / Then
she worked on a new sweater that she is … [making] for Maurizio. / She … [made] a blue sweater for
his birthday, / and now she is … [making] a red and green one for Christmas.
On Sunday, Laura and Maurizio were very tired. They stayed home, and they didn't … [do] anything!
Go back over the passage, reconstructing it , with minimal prompts.
Possible segue:
131