I believe I can fly
Characters:
Theme: Reading comprehension: information search
Competencies
Competence in Linguistic Communication
Personal, social and learning to learn competence
Subjects and year by Educational System
Spain > English > 2nd ESO > Communication
Enunciation
Activity 1
Read the text about Amelia Earhart and answer the questions. After that, write down on the map the countries and continents Amelia flew over in her last flight:
READING
When Amelia was a little girl, she liked to imagine she could stretch her wings and fly like a bird. When she was older, she went to an air show. She was fascinated. She got a ride in a plane and liked it so much that she didn’t want to come down.
Amelia learned to fly. After months of practicing, she became the first woman to fly up to 14,000 feet. With a mechanic and a pilot, she was the first woman to fly over the Atlantic Ocean. After many hours they reached land. The world looked small… so small. Even though Amelia wasn’t flying the plane when they landed she became famous. People around the world was inspired by her story.
Amelia thought that every girl deserved to fly so she founded a club with 99 other fearless female pilots and a year later she flew across the Atlantic all by herself.
She wanted a bigger challenge: to fly around the world. A brave navigator went with her. They flew for thousands of miles, over oceans, jungles… and over the savannah. Some people said their journey was crazy. But Amelia wasn’t afraid of living a thousand adventures, so she flew like a bird farther than anyone had gone before and never to return. When she was trying to reach an island in the Pacific, she reported that the gas was running low. Soon after all communications with the plane stopped.
Amelia always followed her own advice: if you want to do something, do it. You never know how far you can get.
(adapted from: https://fb.watch/cqQZAReNBb/ (16/04/2022)
A. Answer the following questions:
1. What was probably Amelia’s favourite animal? Why?
2. Who did she go with on her first flight over the Atlantic Ocean? And on her next flight over the Atlantic Ocean?
3. What did she find?
4. What was her biggest challenge?
B. Study the picture. It shows the different countries Amelia flew over on her last flight.
1. Make a list with the name of these countries or write them on the map.
2. What continents did she visit?
3. What oceans and seas did she fly over?
Observations and context
Another series of activities is proposed to deepen the knowledge of the character and to cover the different competences:
- I can fly, I can talk: we propose to work with phrases that the protagonist said and summarise her philosophy of life. This can be difficult, so it is preferable to work in groups.
- Knowing Amelia: Viewing of the trailer of the film Amelia, based on her life. You may want to turn on subtitles and use a slower playback speed.
She was a pioneering woman, with an adventurous spirit that led her to play a leading role in some of the most important aviation milestones of her time.
Among the forerunners we can mention
- Raymonde Laroche (France, 1888-1919), who is cited as the first woman to fly a heavier-than-air powered aircraft in 1909.
- Thérèse Peltier (France, 1873-1926), who may have flown an aircraft a year before Laroche.
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- Harriet Quimby (United States, 1875-1912), who obtained her licence in 1911 and a year later flew over the English Channel.
- Ruth Law (United States, 1887-1970), the first woman to fly at night. She fought to break down stereotypes of women aviators. Her article Let Women Fly! (1917) is famous.
Among her contemporaries, the following stand out
- Adrienne Bolland (France, 1895-1975), who flew over the Andes in 1921.
- Hélène Dutrieu (France, 1877-1961), who broke records for speed, altitude and duration, but is remembered for flying without a corset.
- Marie Marvingt (France, 1875-1963), Lydia Litvyak (Russia, 1921-1943) and Mari Pepa Colomer (Spain, 1913-2004), female war aviators who served their countries.
- Beryl Markham (UK, 1902-1986), who, in 1932, shortly after Amelia Earhart's flight, flew from Ireland to Canada, setting the record for crossing the Atlantic from east to west.
-Amy Johnson (England, 1903-1941) pioneer of British aviation.
Later
- Jerrie Mock (United States, 1925-2014) made history as the first woman to fly solo around the world (1964).
- Helen Richey (United States, 1909-1947), the first female commercial pilot in the United States, broke the endurance record in 1933, flying ten days in a row.
- Shaesta Waiz (Afghanistan, 1987- ) who in 2017 became the youngest woman to fly solo around the world.
In Spain, among others, we can name the following women
- M.ª de la Salud Bernaldo de Quirós Bustillo (1898-1983), the first Spanish woman with a pilot's licence,
- Margot Soriano Ansaldo (1908-1991), the second Spaniard to obtain a pilot's licence,
- Irene Aguilera (c.1900- c.1960), said to be the first Spaniard to learn to fly aeroplanes.
- Dolors Vives Rodón (1908-2007), a pilot in the Republican Army during the Civil War, as was Mari Pepa Colomer.
- Bettina Kadner (Madrid, 1946- ), who until 1985 was the only female aviator to fly a passenger plane.
Other American women's rights activists of those years include Mary Lou Baker (1914-1965) and Rosalyn Baxandall (1939-2015).
Description
Distinguishing types of comprehension (general meaning, essential information, main points).
We will work on several activities. We will start with a reading and reading comprehension exercise to find out who Amelia Earhart was.
We will try to point out on a map the last route she took with the aim of remembering or introducing names of countries and oceans in English.
The aim is to work on grammar and logic and try to get the students to reflect and try to explain the meaning of the sentences.