Session 2

Preparations are taking place for Muhammad Ali's funeral this week. Neil and Sian look at how the world's media is reacting and pick out the words and phrases you need to talk about the story

Sessions in this unit

Session 2 score

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    Activity 1

Activity 1

News Review

Muhammad's funeral plans

Hollywood star Will Smith and former boxer Lennox Lewis will carry Muhammad Ali’s coffin at his funeral.

Language challenge

If you write a book about someone's life it's called 'a biography'. If you write a book about your OWN life it's called:

a) a selfie book
b) a self-biography
c) an autobiography

Watch the video and complete the activity

The story

It’s been announced that the Hollywood star Will Smith and the former world heavyweight boxing champion Lennox Lewis will be pallbearers at Muhammad Ali’s funeral.

Smith played Ali in the 2001 movie of the same name, earning an Oscar nomination and becoming a family friend.

Ade Adedoyin – BBC News

That procession will start around 9am local time. The hearse will pass through the main streets of Louisville, down an avenue that bears his name, through the neighbourhood he grew up and also down Broadway where the parade was held to honour him when he won gold in the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome.

Key words and phrases

heavyweight
a weight in boxing, typically the heaviest category

nomination
(here) the act of choosing someone as a candidate to receive an award

pallbearers
people who help to carry the coffin at a funeral

memorial
an event or object to honour or remember a person who has died

a biopic
film about the life of a real person

an autobiography
a book about a person's life, written by that person

bear
(here) to carry

To do

Try our quiz to see how well you've learned today's language.

News Review quiz

3 Questions

Now you've watched the video, try to answer these questions about the language in the news

Congratulations you completed the Quiz
Excellent! Great job! Bad luck! You scored:
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Downloads

You can download the audio and PDF document for this episode here.

Language challenge - answer

The answer is: c) an autobiography

End of Session 2

Join us in Session 3 for Lingohack - our video which teaches you words from the news using the latest BBC World News bulletins.

Session Vocabulary

  • heavyweight
    a weight in boxing, typically the heaviest category

    nomination
    (here) the act of choosing someone as a candidate to receive an award

    pallbearers
    people who help to carry the coffin at a funeral

    memorial
    an event to honour or remember a person who has died
    also an object

    a biopic
    film about the life of a real person

    an autobiography
    a book about a person's life, written by that person