Get ready to read

A
We’re staying at Heathrow
1 Get students to answer the questions and then explain, if 
necessary, that LHR is the standard abbreviation for London 
Heathrow.
2 Ask students to skim the text to answer the questions. Check 
the answers together.
Did you know …?
Ask students if the 24-hour clock is used in their country. It is 
only used in timetables in the UK and USA, but is much more 
common in other countries around the world.
3 Discuss this question as a whole class and then ask students 
if they can think of any other expressions with out of, e.g. out 
of danger, out of town, out of the team, out of court, out of 
date
.
4–6 Students work through the exercises before checking the 
answers as a class.
7 Discuss this question as a whole class. Emphasize the 
point made in the 
Learning tip that it is only necessary to 
know the meaning of words that are important in terms of 
extracting the message from the text.
Class bonus
Discuss the question as a whole class. You could ask students 
who Pierre and Sophie may have called with their free three-
minute telephone call (probably either their hotel in Cape Town 
or friends there if they were planning to stay with friends). You 
could also ask students if they have ever stayed overnight at an 
airport. Why did they have to do this?
More activities
Ask students to fi nd two words in the letter which begin 
with under (underestimate, understanding). Elicit that under 
means ‘not enough’ when placed before estimate, but that it 
does not mean ‘not enough’ in understanding – understand 
and stand are unrelated. Ask students if they know any other 
verbs which begin with under. In which verbs does under 
mean ‘not enough’? You could encourage them to look for 
examples in their dictionary before the next lesson. (Examples 
include: underachieve, undercook, underpay, underrate.)