6
6.2 Reading
Original text
Initially, the discovery of drugs and medicinal plants took place largely through trial and error. Across the world, as tribal peoples foraged for food, they soon realized that their local woodland areas harboured a variety of roots, barks, berries and leaves that were not only sources of food but also in some cases could be healing, soothing or even poisonous.
For example, the indigenous people of South America discovered the fi rst muscle relaxant: a toxic drug called curare that they smeared onto the tips of their spears to immobilize animals when hunting.
Student B paraphrase
Early discoveries of medicines occurred when tribal people found that diff erent plants had various medicinal properties.
Changes made
1. short summary omitting many details
2. use of synonyms: took place g occurred realized gfound roots, barks, berries and leaves gdiff erent plants healing, soothing
or even poisonous gmedicinal properties
G
Review the key paraphrasing skills with the whole class before starting this exercise. T is can be done by elicitation of earlier work, or by using Vocabulary Bank 6.1.
VOCABULARY BANK 6.1 Paraphrasing
Depending on the class, there are a number of possibilities for this activity. One approach is to divide the text into sections and allocate a section to each student or to pairs of students. Alternatively, all students can work on the same paragraph in pairs or individually.
Use the students’ work to feed back visually, highlighting their use of diff erent paraphrasing techniques (possibly using diff erent colours for each).
An early muscle relaxant, curare, originated with the population of South America, where it was used by hunters to immobilize their prey.
Today, a drug which possesses similar characteristics is still used by doctors to relax their patients’ muscles during surgery.
T ese days, patients going into surgery are given a drug with similar properties.
1. information reordered to emphasize discovery (not discoverers)
2. change of subject and verb (see point 1)
3. omission of some details
4. use of synonyms: animals when hunting gprey
1. change of subject, verb and object – reordering information
2. omission of both dependent clauses (one new dependent clause is used)
3. use of synonyms: characteristics g properties today gthese days
Another early discovery was cocaine, which originates in South America and which was traditionally used as an appetite suppressant and stimulant. In medicine, it was used as a local anaesthetic.
122
In medicine, the drug cocaine was used as a local anaesthetic, but its
traditional use in South America was to suppress appetite and as a stimulant.
1. information reordered
2. word forms changed: traditionally used g traditional use appetite suppressant g suppress appetite
Closure 6.2_Closure
Divide the class into two teams. Write the six topic sentences from the reading text on pieces of paper, or use the cut-outs as provided in the PDF. One team chooses a topic sentence and reads it aloud. T e other team must give the information related to the topic sentence. Encourage students to get as close as possible to the actual paragraph content in the text.
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