Article english to go oct 2013

A Drop of Wine english-to-go.com

Upper-Intermediate Instant Lesson™

This lesson was suggested by Marie-Hélène Fasquel of France, one of the winners of our ‘Most Wanted Resource Competition’ in which teachers suggested an idea for a resource they wanted written. Marie-Hélène wanted a flipped lesson for her seconde level class.

Pre-Reading Activities A: Discussion Today you are going to try and solve a crime. You have already listened to a radio news item about the crime while you were doing the Instant Workbook (A Drop of Wine) and you have read some police notes about some of the people they interviewed. Here is a summary of the radio news story you heard on the crime.

Crime: Wine worth millions of dollars was emptied from wine barrels in a wine cellar and was left lying on the floor.

When: Police think the crime took place some time during the Sunday night/early Monday morning.

Where: In a wine cellar belonging to the Mancini family estate in the countryside of Montalcino, Italy.

Who the crime hurts: The crime is a huge loss for the Mancini family, the head of the family is Rosco Mancini.

Who the police think may have committed the crime: Local Mafia Answer these questions in pairs or small groups: 1. You have read about the Mancini family. What problems does this family have?

2. Answer these hypothetical questions.

If you were the daughter of Rosco Mancini, what would you do? Your father has said you won’t get any money from him if you emigrate.

If you were the son of Rosco Mancini, what would you do? Your father does not want you to go back to the job you loved.

If you were the wife of Rosco Mancini, what would you do?

If you were Rosco Mancini, how would you now behave to your son, your daughter and your wife? What would you do?

3. What further details would you like to know about how the crime was committed?

Reading Activities A: Reading For Detail Work in pairs. Your teacher will give you a short police statement. Read it and highlight any information that you think is useful in working out how the crime was committed.

B: Completing A Table Crime:

Wine worth millions of dollars was emptied from wine barrels in a wine cellar and was left lying on the floor.

When:

Police think the crime took place some time during the Sunday night/early Monday morning.

Where:

In a wine cellar belonging to the Mancini family estate in the countryside of Montalcino, Italy.

How crime was committed:

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What police learned from the crime scene:

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What police think about criminals after investigating the crime scene:

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Who the crime hurts:

The crime is a huge loss for the Mancini family, the head of the family is Rosco Mancini.

Who police think may have committed crime:

Local Mafia

Why police think this:

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C: Asking And Answering Questions While you did the Instant Workbook, you found out information about the Mancini family. You are now going to learn about some of the people connected with the Mancini wine estate. Use the information to complete this table of information: Name:

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Age:

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Occupation:

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Motive:

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Movements on Sunday

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night and Monday morning: Other information:

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Name:

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Age:

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Occupation:

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Motive:

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Movements on Sunday

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night and Monday morning: Other information:

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Name:

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Age:

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Occupation:

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Motive:

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Movements on Sunday

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night and Monday morning: Other information:

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Name:

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Age:

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Occupation:

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Motive:

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Movements on Sunday

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night and Monday morning: Other information:

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D: Talking About Possibilities Work in your groups. Answer these questions: How did the criminals commit the crime? (They committed the crime by ________-ing...)

Why do you think they committed the crime? (I think they committed the crime because they wanted to ________...)

Who had access to the security passwords? ((X and X and X had access...)

Who had an opportunity to enter the cellar? ((X and X and X because he/she/they ________...)

Who might have wanted to carry out the crime? ((X and X might have wanted to________...)

Why would they have wanted to do this? (They would have wanted to do this because ________...)

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E: Reaching A Conclusion In your small groups, complete this document:

Post-Reading Activities A: Finding The Answer Today’s crime was not a real one but it had some similar elements to a real one that occurred in Italy. Your teacher will give you an adapted article that gives the solution for the real crime. Read it and find out who committed the crime.

B: Did You Get It Right?

Answer these questions in your groups: 1. Did you solve the crime? Why or why not?

2. What other information would you have found helpful in solving it?

3. What else would you like to know about this crime?

ARTICLE © 2013 THOMSON REUTERS LIMITED. LESSON © 2013 WWW.ENGLISH-TO-GO.COM

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TEACHERS' NOTES AND ANSWER KEY Please note: Today’s lesson is a flipped lesson. Students should have done the Instant Workbook ‘(A Drop of Wine)’ before doing this lesson.

There is a printout at the end of the Instant Workbook which they will need to use in the class today. While being based on a real crime that took place in Italy, we have assigned fictional personalities, alibis and motives to the fictional characters we have created. There is no similarity intended to any real person living or dead: All the personal information presented is a work of fiction.

Reading Activities A: Reading For Detail - Notes After students have completed the Pre-Reading Activity A Discussion, give them the police statement below. Ask them to highlight any information they think is useful.

A: Reading For Detail - Text To Be Copied And Given To Students

Statement written by local police chief, Domenico Giordano.

We carried out a careful inspection of the scene of the crime and have also interviewed any persons suspected of having been involved or able to give us information on how or a motive.

What is most interesting to note is that there was no sign of a forced entry into the cellar. The estate has the standard electronic security system and keys. Anyone entering needed to know the estate’s passwords for the alarm system. This system has not been updated as regularly as it should be, admits the estate manager, Marco Luppino and the passwords were last changed one year ago. (In the past week since the crime they have been updated). The criminal or criminals also knew the value of the wine they were ‘destroying’--they passed wine barrels holding wines of a less valuable vintage and chose the estate’s most valuable wine. This showed that they knew their way around the estate cellar and knew which wine to target.

The wine itself was stored in huge wine barrels. The criminals had simply turned on the taps of 10 of these barrels, allowing about 62,600 liters of wine to pour down the drain. This means that the damage done to the estate was about $6 million euros ($7.93 million). The crime suggests a revenge-style crime: the wine was not stolen to be sold; the kind of wine chosen was the most prized of the estate’s different labels; and the amount of wine wasted suggests that the criminals wanted to hurt the estate. This does suggest a Mafia-style crime. The owner, Rosco Mancini, says he has no known enemies. Staff do report tensions between him and members of his family and also between him and employees and neighboring estate owners.

C: Asking And Answering Questions - Notes There are several ways that you can conduct this activity depending on what kind of language practice you want your students to have and how long you want the activity to take place.

Suggestion one: Select six members of the class to take one of the information cards below and ask them to play the role given on the card. Give them time to read over and understand the information, then get the rest of the class to ask them questions to elicit information to complete the table of information. This should take place like a set of police interviews. Students playing the roles can hesitate, get angry, refuse to answer a question etc (of course at this stage, they do not know who committed the crime.)

If you wish to make the activity more enjoyable and complicated, you can also ask other class members to play the roles of the Mancini family. Therefore Elisabetta Mancini can talk about her relationship with her boyfriend, Lucrezia Mancini can deny or admit her affection for the estate manager, Marco Luppino.

Suggestion two: Put students in groups of six. Give each student one of the information cards and in their groups, they take turns to ask and answer questions to fill the table of information. If you want to have smaller groups, give each student in a group two cards.

Best suggestion! Use the idea from Suggestion one but put the class into groups

which are each then competing to try and solve the crime. You can also appoint students to be ‘detectives’ and allow them to organize students in trying to solve the crime.

C: Asking And Answering Questions - Text On Next Page To Be Copied And Given To Students

© 2013 English To Go Ltd. All rights reserved. News article © 2013 Thomson Reuters, used with permission. Not to be reproduced or stored in any way without the permission of English To Go Ltd. http://www.english-to-go.com English To Go and Instant Lessons are the registered trade marks of English To Go Ltd. email: editor@english-to-go.com 130927WINEhltf

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Name and personal details: Estate Manager, 35-year-old Marco Luppino Where he was: He did overtime paperwork in the estate office until 6.30 pm on Sunday night (in preparation for a busy week

ahead), chatted to an employee, Luigi Travaglini, on his way out to his car at 7.30 pm for dinner engagement in a nearby village and then returned to his cottage on the estate around 2 am on Monday morning. He received news of the crime at 7 am on Monday morning (by cell phone from Luigi Travaglini) and then walked from his cottage to investigate at 7.30 am and then reported news to Rosco Mancini at 8 am.

Motive: Staff overheard a conversation between Rosco Mancini and Luppino on the previous Thursday in which Rosco reported that he was unhappy with production levels and accused Luppino of laziness.

Name and personal details: Boyfriend of Elisabetta Mancini and artist, 24-year-old Mario Albano Where he was: He was at his flat in a nearby village finishing a painting of Elisabetta on Sunday night. He says he did not

leave the flat. He and his flat mates had coffee at 10 pm and then he went to bed. He spoke to Elisabetta by phone around 11 pm. She phoned him on Monday morning and told him about the crime.

Motive: He is in love with Elisabetta and wants to marry her. A flatmate overheard him on the phone comforting Elisabetta and saying that they would one day make her father ashamed of what he had said to her.

Name and personal details: Employee, 39-year-old Pietro Morandi Where he was: He was at his house in a nearby village playing the piano until 1 am on Monday morning. He often doesn’t

sleep well and so went for a drive around 3 am, a neighbor saw him returning at 4.30 am. He heard the news of the crime on the radio on Monday morning when he came to work at the vineyard.

Motive: Morandi has worked at the vineyard for about five years. About four months ago he had asked Mancini for accommodation on the estate but this was instead given to another employee. Mancini has scolded him in the past for ‘careless work’.

Name and personal details: Owner of neighboring vineyard, 72-year-old Domenico Crespo Where he was: He was out to dinner with friends about 30 miles away on Sunday night and then returned to his home

about midnight. His family are away visiting friends in France, so no-one saw him return.

Motive: He has a fiercely competitive relationship with Mancini and angry words were exchanged at times after a disagreement over a boundary some five years ago. The two men now never speak to each other. Crespo is believed to have connections with the Mafia.

Name and personal details: Housekeeper of Mancini Family Home, 49-year-old Carlotta Fiore Where she was: She supervised the serving of family dinner on Sunday night and the cleaning of the kitchen area. While

doing this she overheard an argument between Elisabetta and Rosco during dinner. She saw Lucrezia leaving for outing with friends and says she looked very glamorous. She retired to bed around 9 pm and says she did not hear any strange noises during the night. She heard the news from Luigi Travaglini after he had discovered the crime on Monday morning.

Name and personal details: Employee at Mancini Estate, 58-year-old Luigi Travaglini Where he was: He worked in the cellars until 6 pm on Sunday night, talked to Marco Luppino and saw him leave the estate

at 7.30 pm, went for a walk around the vineyard at 9 pm and then went to bed at his cottage on the estate. He felt very hot so he got up at around 2 am and went for a walk around the vineyard and then went back to bed (no-one can confirm this). He did routine work on Monday morning and discovered the crime at 7 am.

Motive: He asked Rosco Mancini for a promotion some months ago but was told that he should be grateful to stay in the cottage and that he did not deserve a pay rise.

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Post-Reading Activities A: Finding The Answer - Notes A Reuters article about a real crime has been adapted and the names from today’s lesson inserted (with the names of the real people replaced). Students now read it to find out who committed the crime. Expect some students to be pleased, others a little irritated that they got it wrong or that the person who they strongly believed did it was in fact innocent!

A: Finding The Answer - Text To Be Copied And Given To Students

Vineyard vandal’s arrest solves Italy wine mystery Wed Dec 19, ROME (Reuters) - The great mystery of what may go down in wine annals as the crime of the century - the destruction of the equivalent of 80,000 bottles of a choice Sangiovese wine - may have been solved.

Italian police have named a disgruntled former employee of the exclusive Mancini label at the Mancini vineyard and estate in Montalcino, Italy as the suspected wine cellar culprit who dumped tens of thousands of liters of fine wine down the drain.

Police in the small town said 39-year old Pietro broke into the Mancini family estate in the night between December 2 and 3.

He is accused of opening the taps of 10 huge barrels containing of the produce of the last six years and literally letting the wine pour down the drain.

The total amount lost, according to a statement, was 62,600 liters (16,400 gallons), or the equivalent of some 80,000 bottles Since a bottle of the Mancini label starts about 110 euros ($140) and the bottles are numbered as if they were gold bars, the act of vandalism traveled around the world wine community like news of an untimely frost or an unknown pestilence.

The damage done to the 23-hectare (56-acre) estate that uses Sangiovese Grosso vines to produce the famous wine, was estimated to be more than $6 million euros ($7.93 million).

(Adapted...)

Until Morandi’s arrest, it was a vintage whodunit worthy of the new genre of food mystery novels such as “Murder Uncorked” by Michele Stott and “The Merlot Murders,” by Ellen Crosby.

So what was the motive? Police say Morandi who had worked at the Mancini estate for five years, had several tiffs with the family patriarch, Rosco Mancini, 60, a former insurance broker from Milan who started the vineyard in 1972.

Mancini had chastised Morandi for allegedly not taking care of the wine machinery properly and then last September, Morandi felt slighted when the family gave an apartment on the estate to another employee, according to an investigating magistrate.

Investigators said that after Morandi came under suspicion, they tapped his cell phone and heard him speaking about washing wine out of his clothes.

A pair of washed jeans have been sent to a police lab in Rome to check for traces of polyphenols, which are found in red wines.

When the cellar was vandalized, the ruthlessness of the crime made local officials fear the Mafia had moved into the idyllic area of rolling hills topped by centuries-old towns to start an extortion racket.

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ARTICLE © 2013 REUTERS LIMITED. LESSON © 2013 WWW.ENGLISH-TO-GO.COM

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