A Frenchman Called Louis Hoffman Was Travelling on the Titanic with His Two Sons, Michel

The Titanic Story

Aim: Listening activity, putting sentences into the correct order

Level: Pre-Intermediate - Intermediate

Material: Cut up sentences, a set for a group of four

1.Pre-task: Ask students what they know about the Titanic. Elicit the answers and put some basic info and dates on board:

The Titanic

- set off on it’s first voyage in April 1912

- there were 2,207 people on board (passengers and crew)

- it sailed from England to America

- there were lifeboats only for half the people

- on Sunday, April 12th at 11:40 it hit an iceberg and started sinking

- children and women got on the lifeboats and were later rescued by the ship called the Carpathia, about 700 people were rescued, all the others died.

2. Tell the students they are going to read a story of two French children, who went on the Titanic. Ask them to form groups of four. Give each group a set of cut up sentences. They have to share them equally, not looking at the text. Each student should have three slips of paper. (Make sure you mix the sentences up, before you give them to the students!)

3. Tell the students that they have to put the story together and be ready to read it to the whole class. Emphasise that nobody can show his/her sentences to anybody else.

4. The students don’t get any other instructions, they should find a way of doing the task. The best way is to start reading the sentences aloud and deciding which is the first, which of them could be next, etc.

5. When all the groups are finished, they read their versions aloud, one student after another. The whole class decides, whether the sequence of sentences is logical.

The original story:

A Frenchman called Louis Hoffman was travelling on the Titanic with his two sons, Michel and Edmond, aged four and two. He told the other passengers that his wife was dead. But it wasn’t true. The true story was that his name was Michel Dupont. He had just separated from his wife Marcelle. He had decided to run away with his children. He was going to take them to New York to start a new life there.

When the Titanic was sinking, Michel dressed the two little boys and put them into the last lifeboat. He stayed on the ship when it sank and drowned. The two boys were rescued by the Carpathia.

When the two boys arrived in New York on the Carpathia, they were the only children who didn’t have a mother or father. Newspapers all around the world put their photograph on the front page.

Their mother in France saw the newspaper and recognized her children. She immediately traveled to New York to get them. Her old child, Michel, had a message for her from her ex-husband. On the deck of the sinking ship he told his son,“When you see your mother, tell her that I loved her and that I still love her.”

(Taken from English File Intermediate, adapted)

A Frenchman called Louis Hoffman was travelling on the Titanic with his two sons, Michel and Edmond, aged four and two.
He told the other passengers that his wife was dead. But it wasn’t true.
The true story was that his name was Michel Dupont. He had just separated from his wife Marcelle.
He had decided to run away with his children. He was going to take them to New York to start a new life there.
When the Titanic was sinking, Michel dressed the two little boys and put them into the last lifeboat.
He stayed on the ship when it sank and drowned. The two boys were rescued by the Carpathia.
When the two boys arrived in New York on the Carpathia, they were the only children who didn’t have a mother or father.
Newspapers all around the world put their photograph on the front page.
Their mother in France saw the newspaper and recognized her children. She immediately traveled to New York to get them.
Her older child, Michel, had a message for her from her ex-husband.
On the deck of the sinking ship he told his son,
“When you see your mother, tell her that I loved her and that I still love her.”