THE MAGAZINE FOR YOUR ENGLISH
a
of English
YEAR XLII N° 1 • September-October 2025 • Imprimé à Taxe Réduite
A2 • B1
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The Sagrada
06 Familia
Happy birthday,
07 YouTube! Royal
12 National Mòd
People
Zendaya Downloadable AUDIO FILES
www.elilanguagemagazines.com
Very strange animals
Giraffe gazelle It is called this because it has fearful* character. It is a long neck like a giraffe. careful when it is escaping Its scientific* name is Lithocranius It lives in Africa and can from predators* and keeps walleri but it is also called “gerenuk”, eat the leaves of the taller its neck low so as not to get* which in Somali means “with the trees. Its eyes and mouth are stuck in the plants. Agile neck of a giraffe”. surrounded by white fur and and fast, it can jump far and the males have small horns. It lives in small groups (3-10 is great at standing on its back animals). During the day it legs, even for half an hour! is very active, mainly looking for food, but on It is very difficult to see—it has a shy and hot days it likes to rest in the shade.
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Greetings
Lisa
Good day A Tot of English friends! If you already know this magazine, you may notice three new columns: on page 2 you will find out about very curious animals, on page 6 you will find a souvenir photo that travellers always take home. On pages 4 and 5 we will explore some of the most famous mysteries in the world, starting with the disappearance of Amelia Earhart. The report on the central pages celebrates YouTube’s twentieth anniversary, while the interview on page 10 is with the wonderful Zendaya, actor, singer and dancer who is a symbol of GenZ. With your class you can challenge each other to the quiz on page 11: the topic is “TV series”. Have a great start and... have fun!
Contents Sommario Amazing mysteries!
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Souvenir photo
6
Report
7
People
10
The great quiz of…
11
Events
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The disappearance of Amelia Earhart The Sagrada Familia
Happy birthday, YouTube! Zendaya
TV series
Royal National Mòd
Play with A Tot of English 14 Word Scramble
Everyone out on the streets to dance! It is now a tradition: in Greenwich Village, New York, everyone goes out on the streets to dance. What? Michael Jackson’s Thriller dance, obviously! The New York Halloween parade* is animated by the group dance to the tune of Thriller, the ‘80s song that became a huge hit* by Michael Jackson. The New York group Thriller NYC danced to this song the first time in 2004 and hasn’t missed a parade since then! The West Village parade is even older: the first, invented by mask manufacturer Ralph Lee, was on October 31, 1974. Today it is the biggest Halloween parade in the world and also the only night parade in the United States!
Hi, I’m Grammy. This month we’ll learn about:
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the present perfect simple time expressions the passive adverbs the relative pronoun “which” uses of the infinitive
Glossary
fearful: feeling afraid or anxious get stuck: be unable to move hit: success, usually refers to music parade: a group of people walking together for a reason perfected: made as good as possible predators: animals, like lions, that hunt other animals scientific name: decided by Linnaeus, indicates the genus and species of a living being in Latin
Guess
Michael Jackson, the “King of Pop”, was not only a great singer, but also a fantastic dancer. He himself perfected* a dance step that, thanks to his videos, has become really famous! Which one? Go online and learn how to do it, too!
a. b. c.
Catwalk Ball change Moonwalk The answer is on 14
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Amazing mysteries!
Mysteries are all around us—things that happen that we cannot quite explain. Let’s take a deeper look at some mysterious events that have shocked* the world!
The disappearance of Amelia Earhart
Amelia Earhart was a courageous woman who had a dream—to be the first female pilot ever to fly around the world. Born and raised in Kansas, in the USA, Amelia was a child that, from an early age, always liked adventure. It was in the early 1920s, when she visited an air* fair, that she developed an interest in flying. She began going to air shows to watch these
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mysterious inventions in action. Soon after, she started taking flying lessons. On May 16, 1923, she got her flying license, becoming the 16th woman in the United States to be given one. In 1928, Amelia reached another first—she was the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean. This time, she was only a passenger—a man named Wilmer Stultz flew the plane. However, this experience made her desire to* pilot a plane by herself grow. In fact, in May 1932, she became the first female to fly alone nonstop across the Atlantic. Early in 1936, she started working on her plan to fly
around the world. If successful, she would become the first woman to do so. On one of her flights, while preparing for this, the unthinkable happened. Amelia was flying with a man named Fred Noonan, who was her navigator*. The duo had begun their journey from Miami and were headed* east on June 1. They had made various stops to refuel* the plane in the weeks that followed. After one of these stops, they were flying towards Howland Island—a coral atoll* near Hawaii in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. The flight was expected to be difficult because this island was hard to locate. The last communication received from Amelia during the flight was, “We are running north and south.”
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time expressions; uses of the infinitive
To understand more about this amazing woman, it is now possible to visit Amelia’s childhood home in Kansas. Not only can you see the place where she was raised*, but you can also understand a bit more about the time period she grew up in. If you can’t make it to Kansas, visit the museum site at https://www.ameliaearhartmuseum.org/ to take a free virtual tour or follow its blog to learn more about her.
probable seems to be that the plane ran out of fuel and crashed into the ocean. However, not only were Amelia and Fred never found, but neither was the plane wreckage*! Even without their bodies, after months of searching, Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Amelia Earhart isn’t the only woman to make history. The list is long! Here are just a few more that we cannot forget for their contributions to history... • Maria Salomea Skłodowska-Curie discovered radium and was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize (she actually won two—for physics and chemistry) • Aretha Franklin was a soul singer and the first woman to get into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame • Florence Nightingale was the founder of modern nursing • Junko Tabei was the first woman to reach the top of Mount Everest!
After that—silence. Amelia and her navigator disappeared over the Pacific Ocean on July 2, 1937. There was a long search for Amelia and Fred, but they were never found. There are many theories about her disappearance. The most
Unscramble the quote Bessie Coleman was an African-American woman born in Texas in 1892. Like Amelia, she dreamed of flying. However, life wasn’t easy back then... Facing discrimination because of her race and the fact that she was a woman, Bessie traveled to France in 1921. She got her pilot’s licence and became the first AfricanAmerican woman to get one. Unscramble the quote to see what she has to say about flying!
Noonan were pronounced dead on January 5, 1939. We may never know what happened but one thing is sure— Amelia Earhart was a courageous woman who will never be forgotten!
Glossary
“AIR PLACE ONLY THE FROM PREJUDICES FREE THE IS.” .............................................................................................................................................................................................................. The answer is on page 14
air fair: a show with airplanes atoll: a chain of islands made of coral headed: going towards something navigator: a person who plans and directs travel raised: brought up, educated refuel: fill with more gas to pilot: to drive a plane wreckage: what is left of something that has been destroyed
05
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Souvenir photo
the relative pronoun “which”; the present perfect simple; time expressions; the passive
How wonderful is it to take pictures when you travel and then look at them on the couch, once you get home? It’s impossible to be a tourist in Barcelona and not photograph the Sagrada Familia, the city’s most famous monument! The construction of the Sagrada Familia, which began on March 19, 1882, has not yet been finished: work on this monument has been underway for practically 138 years! In fact, it is the largest unfinished* church in the world. Antoni Gaudí, who directed the initial work on the construction of this masterpiece, planned 18 towers, although in the end he only had time to build one before he died in 1926. All the towers are dedicated to figures of the Catholic religion, the height of the towers themselves depending on their importance: the tallest is dedicated to Jesus.
The Sagrada Familia
It is certainly the most famous and characteristic church in Barcelona, located in the lively Eixample district. The style is neo-Gothic but has Catalan* modernism and art nouveau influences. For the interior Gaudí, who was inspired by the forms of nature, chose columns in the shape of tree trunks. In fact, it looks like a huge stone forest! Since 2012, the chief architect has been Jordi Faulí i Oller, but many events have hindered* the construction,
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such as the fire in 2011 and Covid, which stopped work for many months. On November 29, 2021, a twelve-pointed crystal star dedicated to Mary was placed at the top of the tower, which is always illuminated and is 7 meters high. According to some, the church will be finished by 2032.
Do I… or don’t I like it?
Do you like this image? Could it be good as your phone or computer wallpaper? Do you know this work? What strikes you about it? What don’t you like? Explain.
Spanish architect Antoni Gaudí dedicated most of his life to this project, which he considered fundamental. His nickname is “God’s architect”.
Glossary
Catalan modernism: artistic style born in the late 1800s in the Spanish region of Catalonia hindered: made difficult, blocked unfinished: not ended