Australia: the Place 1 T4.22 Ascolta E Leggi Il Factfile Sull’Australia
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Culture Australia: the place 1 T4.22 Ascolta e leggi il Factfile sull’Australia. Prepara un Factfile simile sull’Italia. Cape Darwin York Indian Ocean Australia Great Barrier Reef Outback Ayers Rock Brisbane Lake Eyre Perth Adelaide Murray Factfile: Australia Southern River Sydney Population 20.6 million Ocean Canberra Capital city Canberra (325,000) Highest mountain Mawson Peak (2,745 m) Melbourne Largest lake Lake Eyre (9,500 km 2) Longest river The Murray River (2,530 km) Tasmania 2 T4.23 Ascolta e leggi le informazioni sull’Australia e abbina i titoli ai paragrafi corretti. 1 A Climate B Origins C Geography Australia is the largest island in the world. It is 7.7 million km2. But Australia is also a continent – the continent of Australasia, which contains Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand. It is the smallest continent. The population of Australia is 20.6 million, but the people mainly live in the cities along the coast. Most of Australia is empty and this is because most of it is desert. This desert region is located mainly in the centre of the country and it is called the Outback. Although most of Australia is desert, there are stunning features to see. There are 540 national parks as well as 12 heritage sites. There are also rainforests in Queensland and around 2,000 coral reefs. The eucalyptus is one of the most common trees. Eucalyptus trees give out small drops of blue oil and this is why the mountains near Sydney are called the Blue Mountains. 2 2 3 Aborigines have been in Australia for 60,000 years. Australia has tropical, temperate and dry They originally came from Asia. Aborigines lived regions, with different weather conditions for in tribes of about ten to fifty people, but they each region. didn’t live in one place: they were In the north, the tropical region, there is a nomads. This way of life was called six-month-long wet season with temperatures the ‘Walkabout’. They between 30 and 50ºC. The temperatures fall sometimes built huts or lived to about 20ºC in the dry season. in caves and we can still The centre of Australia is the desert region. see the pictures they Here it is very hot during the day, and very cold painted in these caves. at night. It’s usually about 40ºC in the summer They painted their and between 16 to 24ºC in the winter. At night, bodies, too. They ate what the temperature can fall to 0ºC. There is also they found in the forests: very little rain. insects, fish, honey and The temperate region in the south has plants. They also hunted changeable weather with an average temperature and used boomerangs to of around 30ºC in the summer, and 15ºC in kill kangaroos. Aborigines spoke the winter. about 500 different languages, but only around 30 exist today. Many Australian place names 3 Rileggi il testo e rispondi alle domande. ES come from Aboriginal words. 1 What is the name of the empty inland The most famous is Canberra, area of Australia? the capital city. When European settlers started to 2 How many national parks has Australia got? arrive in the 18th century, they killed 3 Why are the mountains near Sydney called many of the Aborigine tribes and took their the ‘Blue Mountains’? land. They destroyed their way of life and tried 4 Which word describes the nomad life of to make them more western. Today modern the Aborigines? Aborigines are allowed to preserve their culture. 5 How many Aborigine languages exist today? They have their own flag. It’s black and red with 6 What are the colours of the Aborigine flag? a yellow circle. The black symbolizes the 7 Which area has temperatures of 15ºC in Aborigines; red is the red earth of Australia, and the winter? the yellow circle is the sun. 2.2% of the total 8 Which area gets a lot of rain? population of Australia is Aborigine. Presentazione orale Lavorate in coppie, rispondete alle domande e prendete appunti. Poi preparate una breve presentazione orale. • Which early people lived in Italy before modern times? • What evidence can you see of this? 3 Culture Australia: past and present 2 Rileggi i testi e decidi se le affermazioni sono ES K 1 T4.24 Che cosa sai su questi personaggi? vere (T) o false (F). Abbina i nomi alle descrizioni. Poi ascolta 1 James Cook died in Britain. e leggi i testi per controllare le risposte. 2 Ned Kelly’s family didn’t know that he was a bank robber. A James Cook1 a singer 3 Kylie Minogue is an actress and an B Kylie Minogue a film actress 2 author as well as a singer. C Nicole Kidman3 a bank robber 4 Kylie Minogue performed at the D Ned Kelly4 a sailor and explorer Sydney Olympics. 5 Nicole Kidman moved to Australia in 1981. James Cook Ned Kelly James Cook was born in 1728. He was a Ned Kelly was born in 1854 and grew sailor and joined the British navy when up in a poor family of Irish immigrants. he was 13. Cook quickly showed his When he was still quite young, he stole skill as a navigator and when he was 41, horses with his brothers. When Ned was the British Admiralty sent him to Tahiti 23, he shot a policeman in the arm and and New Zealand. He travelled on he ran away with his brothers and some an old coal ship, The Endeavour. He friends. They formed a gang and robbed arrived in southern Australia by accident banks around the country. They also on his way home in 1770. He stopped fought for justice for poor Australians. in a beautiful bay and decided to call it He became a folk hero like Robin Hood. ‘Botany Bay’. Captain Cook raised the Eventually the authorities captured him British flag and claimed the new and hanged him in Melbourne in 1880. country for the British Empire. Cook also discovered Hawaii but on one of his trips some Polynesian natives killed him in 1779. 4 3 T4.25 Leggi questa famosa canzone australiana. Poi ascoltala e cerca di cantarla. Presentazione orale D Lavorate in coppie, rispondete alle domande Waltzing Matilda e prendete appunti. Poi preparate una breve Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong Under the shade of a coolibah tree presentazione orale su un italiano famoso. And he sang as he watched and waited till I • Who is an important folk hero in Italian his billy boiled history? Was he / she good or bad? ‘You’ll come a waltzing Matilda with me, • Make some notes about the hero and Waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda, then write a short paragraph like the You’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me’. L ones on pages 4 and 5 about him / her. Kylie Minogue Nicole Kidman Kylie Minogue was born in Melbourne, Nicole Kidman was born in Hawaii in Australia in 1968. She worked as a child 1967 and moved to Australia with her actress from the age of 11, and starred family when she was four years old. She in the TV soap Neighbours from 1986 to started acting on Australian TV when 1988. She then moved from acting to she was a teenager and then became singing and brought out several number famous when she starred in the film 1 hits in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Dead Calm with Sam Neill in 1989. Her including I should be so lucky. Her album, most popular films include the black Light Years, is her most popular to date. comedy To Die for (1995), the ghost She sang at the Sydney Olympics in 2000 story The Others (2001) and the war and in 2001, her single Can’t get you out romance Cold Mountain (2003). of my head was her biggest success. It was number 1 in over 40 countries and sold six million copies. She has also written a children’s book, The Showgirl Princess. 5 Culture New Zealand: geography 1 T4.26 Ascolta e leggi le informazioni su questi posti della Nuova Zelanda. Abbina le descrizioni ai luoghi sulla mappa. Wellington is the capital A 1 city. It is on the south of North Island. The Parliament Buildings are in Wellington. B 2 Waitangi is north of Auckland. It is the place where Tasman Sea North 50 Maori chiefs signed the Island Treaty of Waitangi. After this, New Zealand became part of C the British Empire. 3 Lake Taupo is in the centre of North Island. It’s New Zealand’s largest lake. Fishermen go to the lake every year because there are D 500 tonnes of trout there. South 4 Auckland is in the northern part of North Island Island E New Zealand on a very narrow piece of land. 5 Christchurch is the biggest city on South Island. Pacific Ocean It has been very important for many Antarctic expeditions, as Dunedin many Antarctic explorers used the Port of Lyttleton as a departure point for expeditions. It has an International Antarctic Centre. 2 T4.27 Ora ascolta e leggi le informazioni sulla Nuova Zelanda e la sua storia. People and history The main tribe in New Zealand is the Maori There are now many different nationalities in people. They are Polynesians and came originally New Zealand. Almost a quarter of the population from Hawaii. When Captain Cook landed there, of New Zealand have got Scottish ancestors. in 1769, around 100,000 Maoris lived in New Scottish national dress (the kilt), music (the Zealand.