Ancient Beauty Spot

WORKSHEET

1. Suggested Use

Travel and history focus, followed by closed practice A1-level vocabulary and grammar activities. 

2. Suggested Activities 

A. Project-based learning
Create a travel guide page. Students work in pairs to make a one-page travel guide about Ula, or an historic place in their country.

They include:

• A short description (where it is, what to see, what to do) using the ULA script as a model 

• One interesting fact about the place

• A simple map, drawing or images 

They can present it to the class or record a short vlog.

B. Mediation task - note-taking + relaying specific information
Students imagine a classmate was absent when they watched the video. Their classmate needs to find out what they missed in class. 

Students watch the video again and make simple notes on the main ideas. Then they explain, in their own words, what the place is, where it is, and why it’s special.

C. Pronunciation task - word stress and rhythm
Elicit, practise and drill stress in two, three and four-sound words from the video, e.g. Mirror; Decade; Beautiful; Helicopter; Arabic. 

3. Vocabulary 

Travel and history 

• old (town)

• desert

• mirror

• tourist 

• history 

• large

• visitor 

• building 

• site 

• decade

• hundreds of years 

• nature

• culture 

4. Grammar

Present simple:
Al Ula is a beautiful…; Al Ula is very large; You can see…; The houses are…; It does not stand…; Al Ula has nature….

There is / there are:
there are many places to see; there is a building with mirrors 

Prepositions of place:
in Saudi Arabia, on the rocks, in the rocks, in Al Ula, In the desert

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TRANSCRIPT
Ancient Beauty Spot

NARRATOR:
Al Ula is a beautiful, old place in Saudi Arabia.  Al Ula is part of a new plan to welcome tourists and share its history with the world. Al Ula is very large — about the same size as Belgium. There are many places to see, so some people travel by helicopter.

Al Ula is full of history. You can see old writing on the rocks. These show that Arabic writing looked different in the past. A long time ago, the Nabataean people built tombs in the rocks. There is also an old town in Al Ula. Today, the houses are empty, but many visitors like to see them.

There are some new buildings, too. In the desert, there is a building with mirrors on the outside. It shows the rocks and sand around it, so it does not stand out. Some areas in Al Ula still look like they did a long time ago. These places are so beautiful because people stayed away for many years.

SOUNDBITE – Cameron Manwaring:
"One of the reasons some of the sites that you've seen are so beautiful and so pristine is because visitors have not been here for decades and even for hundreds of years in many cases."

NARRATOR:
Al Ula has nature, culture and stories from the past. Now, people from around the world are coming to see it.