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     Volume 4 Issue 13 | September 17, 2004 |


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Education

 

What sports are played in Bangladesh?
Which sports do females play?
Which sports do males play?
Which sports do children play?
What is your favourite sport?
What are some of the different names for the special places where sports are played?
What is the name of a sport where one person has to fight another?

About two years ago, a movie was made called "Gladiator". If you have seen the movie, it may help you understand some of the words below. If you haven't seen the movie read the following paragraph and answer the questions.

The ancient Roman Empire was made up of lots of countries, including Britain, that the Romans had attacked and invaded. There are many ancient Roman ruins in Britain. You can often see old Roman walls and roads that have been dug up. Archaeologists dig up ruins to find out how people lived in ancient times. Archaeologists have found that ancient Romans enjoyed watching sports. A favourite sport was watching gladiators fight each other or sometimes, dangerous animals. The gladiators trained everyday and learnt how to fight using different types of weapons. Often they fought "to the death", until one person was killed. The sports ground where the gladiator fought was called an amphitheatre.

*What does the word ancient mean? *What is an archaeologist? *What does invaded mean?
*What is the Roman Empire? *What is a ruin? *What is a gladiator?

Often, when you do not know a word in a sentence, you can still understand its meaning by reading the rest of the sentence. Read the article below and choose the right word or phrase from the list below to fill in the gaps in the article.

remains
pelvic
digging
warrior
unearthing

Archaeologists (1)________________ up a burial sight in London believe they have made a special discovery in (2)________________ the (3)________________ of a female Roman-era gladiator. While it has been known that Roman women fought in the arena, this would be the first real example.
All that is left of the ancient (4)________________, believed to have been in her mid-twenties when she died, is her (5)________________ bone. The amphitheatre in which the gladiator would have appeared was discovered in 1986 in Southwark in South London. It could hold 7,000 people for a city whose population in Roman times was 20,000.

There is a mistake in the above article. See if you can find it by using the clues below:
*The mistake is in the first sentence of the article. It is a vocabulary mistake. (The word used, sounds the same as the word it should be but with a different meaning)
*Make a list of other words you know that sound the same but have different meanings. Words that sound the same but with different meanings are called 'Homophones'
Example: ate/eight see/sea read/red mail/male not/knot dear/deer


Comprehension check:
Read the above story and answer the below questions.
1. What type of place were the archaeologists digging up?
2. Does the Roman-era mean this century or many centuries ago?
3. It has been known for a long time that Roman women fought as gladiators, so why was the discovery special?
4. Before the discovery, how do you think people knew that there were female gladiators?
5. How do you think that the archaeologists know that the gladiator was a woman?
6. Were entertainment shows that included gladiators expected to be popular?
7. Where could you see the gladiator show?


What next?
You can find out more about gladiators and the Roman era by using the Internet.

http://ablemedia.com/ctcweb/consortium/gladiator6.html will tell you more about our female gladiator

You can try using the below search engines to help you research and read.

http://google.com http://yahoo.com http://hotmail.com


Answers
missing words 1 digging 2 unearthing 3 remains 4 warrior 5 pelvic
Deliberate mistake: sight instead if site
Comprehension: 1. An ancient burial ground/site 2. approx 2000 years ago 3. It was the first example of female gladiator remains 4. paintings and written records 5. Female pelvic bones are different from the male.6. Yes, it was a favourite sport 7. In an amphitheatre

 

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