The King’s Nightingale

Group A (Listening): Are these sentences TRUE or FALSE? If FALSE, explain why! 1.A nightingale is a big bird. (……) 2.The king of China lived in a forest. (……) 3.The nightingale sang for half an hour. (……) 4. The servant brought the bird to the queen. (……) 5. The bird was in a tree when they found it. (……)

Group B (Listening): Listen and choose the correct answer? 1.One day the king of another country sent a present to the king of China. It was …… a)A toy dog b)A toy nightingale c)A real nightingale d)A falcon 2.The toy nightingale sang for …… a)Five minutes b)Ten minutes c)Twenty minutes d)Fifteen minutes

Group B (Listening): Listen and choose the correct answer? 3.The king put the toy nightingale on a …… a)Chair b)Table c)Desk d)Sofa 4.At last a clever clockmaker repaired it but he told the king that it will only sing once …… a)A day b)A week c)A month d)A year

Vocabulary Read this paragraph and fill in the gaps with the following words. months/forest/servants/ golden cage/nightingale/king The …(1)… did not want to go with them. It liked to live in the …(2)…. But it wanted to make the …(3)… happy. It went with them and sang for the king. The king was very happy. He asked the nightingale to stay with him. He ordered his …(4)… to buy a …(5)… for the nightingale. The nightingale lived in the cage and sang for the King every day. It was not happy but it stayed with the King for many …(6)….

Grammar Read this paragraph and choose the correct form of the verbs in the brackets. (1)(goes/go) (2)(liked/likes) (3)(goes/went) (4)(stay/stayed) (5)(sing/sang) (6)(stay/stayed) The nightingale did not want to (1)(goes/go) with them. It (2)(liked/likes) to live in the forest. But it wanted to make the king happy. It (3)(goes/went) with them and sang for the king. The king was very happy. He asked the nightingale to (4)(stay/stayed) with him. He ordered his servants to buy a golden cage for the nightingale. The nightingale lived in the cage and (5)(sing/sang) for the King every day. It was not happy but it (6)(stay/stayed) with the King for many months.

Production Rewrite/tell the story using the following words. Nightingale King of China Forest Servant Tree Happy Golden cage Months Present Key Forgot Table Tired Broke Clockmaker Screwdriver Once a year Sad Ill Well

Prediction Can you predict what will happen at the end of this story!? Write your thoughts down and then discuss them with your partner.

Resources m/?scope=images m/?scope=images D. H. Howe, Start with English 6 - Oxford University Press,

The King’s Nightingale A nightingale is a small bird that sings beautifully. When a woman sings beautifully, we say that she sings like a nightingale. There was once a King of China who lived near a forest. One night, he was sitting by a window. He was reading a book. He heard a nightingale singing in the forest. It sang for half an hour. ‘What kind of bird is that?’ he said. ‘I must have it.’ He ordered his servants to bring him the bird. They went into the forest and looked for it. At last they found it. It was in a tree, near a stream. They asked it to go with them. The nightingale did not want to go with them. It liked to live in the forest. But it wanted to make the king happy. It went with them and sang for the king. The king was very happy. He asked the nightingale to stay with him. He ordered his servants to buy a golden cage for the nightingale. The nightingale lived in the cage and sang for the King every day. It was not happy but it stayed with the King for many months.

The King’s Nightingale One day, the King of another country sent a present to the King of China. It was a toy nightingale. It was not real. It had many jewels all over it and it had a key. The key was used to wind it up. Then it sang like a real nightingale. It sang for five minutes. The King was very pleased. He wound it up again and again and it sang its song. The King forgot the real nightingale. The real nightingale flew out of the window. It went back to the forest. It was happy again. The King put the toy nightingale on a table by his bed. It sang all the time. It never seemed tired. But one day something inside broke and it stopped singing. The King ordered his servants to find someone who could repair it. At last they found a clever clockmaker. He had a very small screwdriver. He undid some screws and looked inside the toy nightingale. He repaired it and put the screws back. ‘I have repaired it,’ he told the king. ‘It will sing for you now, but it is very old. It must not sing more than once a year.’

The King’s Nightingale The King was very sad. The nightingale sang once a year for five years. Then the king became ill. He lay in his bed with his eyes closed. The doctors went away and said, ‘The King is dead!’ Suddenly the King heard the real nightingale singing outside the window. The King opened his eyes and said, ‘My little friend has come back!’ The nightingale sang all night and in the morning the King was well again.