The railway in the sky

Objective & content

This Look Closer episode (Greener cities mini-series, episode 33) is a short documentary about the High Line, a New York park on an old freight railway. The railway opened in 1934, the trains stopped in 1980, and it became a park in 2009. It shows how a city can use an old structure again and gain plants, shade and cleaner air, and it ends on a debate: homes nearby became much more expensive. The narration uses the past simple and the present simple (was built, wanted to); no grammar point is taught. It is a listening comprehension episode: learners listen, then answer the 10 questions in the app: 8 on facts and 2 on vocabulary (passengers and knock down). The study topic is how cities change to be greener and better to live in.

Materials & prerequisites

The folder holds the audio, the slideshow and the script; there is no lesson plan. The pupil pack and the teacher pack (answers highlighted) are one A4 page each, with the text, three photos (the High Line above 10th Avenue, wild plants on the old rails, people walking on the park today), the key words and the 10 questions; a pupil sheet and a teacher sheet with the answer key come with them. The text ends with an open question (Think about it: Would you like a park like this in your town? Why, or why not?). Learners should know the past simple of common verbs and be able to read years such as 1934 and 2009. The pack's key words explain the new words (path, railway, goods, passenger, knock down, chemical, shade).

Curriculum alignment

Tagged c4-encountering-others ("Rencontre avec l'autre"), Cycle 4 (4e). The episode targets CEFR level A2+.