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The Turkmen cockroach
Level 1 Elementary
1
Key words
cockroach /ˈkɒkrə Ʊ tʃ/ noun [countable]
An insect similar to a large beetle that lives in places where food is kept.
Find words in the article that mean:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
To get rid of an employee. (sub-title and para 4)
A short news programme or oficial statement. (para 1)
The people who watch a TV programme at home. (para 1)
To be shown again. (para 2)
Shocked. (para 3)
Something that happens that is (in this case) embarrassing. (para 5)
To show a TV or radio programme. (para 6)
Changes, especially to make a system work fairly. (para 8)
To give something back to someone. (para 9)
To do something in front of an audience, especially in a theatre. (para 9)
A situation in which a country is alone. (para 10)
Someone has completed their studies at a university. (para 11)
2
Vocabulary: Word beetle
Skim the article to ind media and TV jobs. Write them onto the word beetle.
d__________
c_______ o________
j_________
media/TV jobs
t_________
n_________
TV e_________
© Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2008
NEWS LESSONS / The Turkmen cockroach / Elementary
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The Turkmen cockroach
Level 1 Elementary
And inally... how a cockroach put 30
people out of work
Luke Harding in Moscow
February 22, 2008
8
Berdymukhamedov has begun a series of
mild liberal reforms in Turkmenistan. He has
said that Internet cafes will open in Ashgabat,
Turkmenistan’s capital, and he has said that
school children should start learning foreign
languages again.
Turkmen president sacks staff after an insect
walks onto a TV news bulletin
9
Last March the president restored pensions to
more than 100,000 old people. In January he
announced that opera and ballet are allowed to
be performed once again in Turkmenistan .
1
For the people watching the news in
Turkmenistan, it was another normal bulletin. But
as the newsreader began reading the news at
9pm, viewers across the central Asian country
saw something unusual crawling across the
studio table: a large brown cockroach.
10
Berdymukhamedov wants to end Turkmenistan’s
isolation from the rest of the world in other ways
too. He wants to attract more foreign tourists to
Turkmenistan, especially to the new multibillion
pound tourist resort on the Caspian Sea. The
president has also visited Washington.
2
The cockroach ran the whole way across the
desk and then disappeared. The programme,
complete with cockroach, was repeated at 11pm
that night.
11
Berdymukhamedov’s dislike of cockroaches may
have something to do with his previous career
as a dentist. He graduated from Turkmenistan’s
state medical institute in 1979, he has a PhD in
medical sciences from Moscow, and he worked
as a dentist from 1980 to 1995. In December
1997, he was made minister for health.
3
Horriied oficials from Turkmenistan’s ministry of
culture knew nothing about the cockroach until
9am the next day. The results of the cockroach’s
ive minutes of fame were immediate and severe.
4
The country’s president, Kurbanguly
Berdymukhamedov immediately sacked 30
workers from the main state TV channel, the news
website Kronika Turkmenistan reported yesterday.
Cockroach notes
•
4,500 cockroach species are known, but
there may be at least twice as many species
not yet discovered around the world.
Although people some people think that
cockroaches would be the only survivors of
nuclear war (because they 15 times more
resistant to radiation than humans), other
insects such as fruit lies can survive even
higher doses of radiation.
A cockroach can live without a head for
several weeks before it starves to death; the
head by itself can survive several hours.
The world’s largest species of cockroach is the
wingless Australian rhinoceros (Macropanesthia
rhinoceros), it weighs up to 33.5 gms and can
measure up to 90 mm in length.
5
Before the cockroach incident, Berdymukhamedov
had ordered Turkmenistan’s minister of culture,
Gulmurat Muradov, to modernise the country’s TV
channel. However, the new ministerial committee in
charge of the modernization only works from 9am
to 6pm. This allowed the cockroach to run around
at 9pm unnoticed.
•
6
Berdymukhamedov became leader of the oil-rich
former Soviet republic in December 2006. The
previous president, Saparmurat Niyazov, sacked
several TV executives after drunken technicians
forgot to broadcast his New Year’s speech to the
nation. They eventually broadcast the speech at 3am.
•
•
7
Those sacked in the cockroach incident included
journalists, directors, camera operators, and
technical staff.
© Guardian News & Media 2008
First published in The Guardian , 22/02/08
© Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2008
NEWS LESSONS / The Turkmen cockroach / Elementary
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The Turkmen cockroach
Level 1 Elementary
3
Comprehension check
Join the sentence halves to re-tell the story.
a) A cockroach ran across...
... the state TV channel.
b) Ministry oficials knew nothing until... ... the cockroach incident funny.
c) The news bulletin, with the cockroach, was shown again on TV... ... the newsreader’s desk on live television.
d) The president did not ind... ... international image.
e) The president sacked 30 staff at... ... the same evening.
f) Turkmenistan wants to improve its...
... opera and ballet performances.
g) Turkmenistan has built a new multibillion pound tourist resort at... ... the next morning.
h) Turkmens can now go to Internet cafes and...
... the Caspian Sea.
4
Vocabulary: Countries
Write the country names under their correct pronunciation pattern.
Turkmenistan Kazakhstan Ukraine Uzbekistan
Russia Afghanistan Iran Pakistan
oOoo
oO
Oo
Ooo
© Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2008
NEWS LESSONS / The Turkmen cockroach / Elementary
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The Turkmen cockroach
Level 1 Elementary
5
Questions and answers
Write your answers to the questions. Then ask and answer the questions in groups.
What you would do if you saw a cockroach:
in the street?
in your home?
in a restaurant?
E.g. If I saw a cockroach in the street, I would ...
... walk away.
... call the authorities.
... scream.
6
Webquest: Cockroach quiz
Do cockroaches bite? How big is a cockroach baby? What do cockroaches eat?
Go to http://www.bio.umass.edu/biology/kunkel/cockroach_faq.html to ind the answers to these and
many other questions.
Make a class quiz. Each student should write at least one question (plus answer).
© Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2008
NEWS LESSONS / The Turkmen cockroach / Elementary
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•
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The Turkmen cockroach
Level 1 Elementary
KEY
1 Key words
1. sack
2. bulletin
3. viewers
4. repeated
5. horriied
6. incident
7. broadcast
8. reforms
9. restored
10. performed
11. isolation
12. graduated
3 Comprehension check
a) A cockroach ran across the newsreader’s desk on
live television.
b) Ministry oficials knew nothing until the next
morning.
c) The news bulletin, with the cockroach, was shown
again on TV the same evening.
d) The president did not ind the cockroach incident
funny.
e) The president sacked 30 staff at the state TV
channel.
f) Turkmenistan wants to improve its international
image.
g) Turkmenistan has built a new multibillion pound
tourist resort at the Caspian Sea.
h) Turkmens can now go to Internet cafes and opera
and ballet performances.
2 Vocabulary: Word beetle
camera operators
directors
journalists
newsreaders
TV executives
technicians / technical staff
4 Vocabulary: Countries
oOoo
oO
Oo
Ooo
Turkmenistan
Uzbekistan
Afghanistan
Ukraine
Iran
Russia Kazakhstan
Pakistan
© Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2008
NEWS LESSONS / The Turkmen cockroach / Elementary
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