That's English! - Module 7 - Unit 8: Crime

As usual, we'll start with general questions about this topic. Here you are some questions to work on with your partner(s):

• What are the main crimes in your town/country? Have you ever been a victim of one of those? If so, explain what happened to you.
• Do you think prison is an effetive form of punishment? What other forms of punishment do you know?
• Do you think cybercrime is a big problem in Spain? What about downloading? Is it a crime?
• Are there any measures to be taken to avoid or reduce the crime rate in our society: more severe laws, more or longer punishment, more help for people who are at risk of exclusion, educational measures...?

Activity 1

Imagine you have been burglared and a police officer comes to your house. Have a role play in which you are the victim and your partner is the police officer. Give as many details as possible about what you've been robded. Then change roles and in this occasion you are the police officer and you've been mugged in the street or pickpocketed when you where on the bus. Ask questions to get details. what happened, when, where, what items you were stolen and so on.

Activity 2

Think about a detective story, novel or film you've seen recently and tell the story to your mate. If you don't remember one, try to make up a detective story about a famous detective such as Sherlock Holmes, Hercules Poirot, Agatha Christie's strories and so on.

Activity 3

Here you have some listening exercises to practise:

• a short exercise about crime: click here
• this is a funny video about a crime: click here
• this is a very easy listening about a "perfet crime": click here
• this is a short text with audio including some words about crime and punishment: click here
• this a very long one but it's divided in 4 exercises: click here

Activity 4

About grammar this unit deals with non-defining relative clauses, which are the ones in which the relative pronoun can't be replaced by THAT. They are like an explanation and they go between commas (as if it were a comment or an added explanation). Here you are an exercise to see the difference between defining and non-defining relative clauses: click here.

Let's practise with this. This game is called Taboo and you can't say the word in your card or very clear clues. Describe the object or the person you have in your card so you should use WHO, WHICH or THAT, like in this example:

• a screwdriver: it's a tool (which/that) you use to fix two things together. You need a screw, which is a piece of metal similar to a nail, but you also need another piece with a hole in the middle (something similar to a little ring) to fix it. - destornillador

REMEMBER: When THAT / WHICH / WHO are not the subject of the subordinate clause, it can be elicited or removed from the sentence; e.g. It's a kind of tool (that) people use to cut something or to peel fruit, vegetables or so ( a knife).

Activity 5

To work with vocabulary of crime and punishment, here are you some exercises to practise:

• exercise 1    exercise 2

This is an entry on a blog about this topic; it has some videos and vocabulary: click here


Activity 6
To finish with, remember you use passive voice while talking about this topic (reviewing this grammar point from previous lessons). Let's see some examples by ansering these questions:

• Have you ever been stolen on a bus or on the train? What were you stolen? Did you reported the theft? What happened in the end?
• Has your house ever been burglared? What happened? What were you stolen?
• Have you ever been mugged in the street? What happened? Were you hurt?