This lesson links back to the murder story in 8 A. Many years later, a couple who are looking for a house to rent are shown around Jeremy Travers’s house by Barbara, his daughter, now quite elderly. It is only after they have decided to rent it that they discover that the house has a dark secret and that someone was murdered there. The lesson begins with a vocabulary focus on house and furniture lexis. Sts then listen to a conversation between Barbara and the young couple as she shows them around the Travers family’s old house, now for rent.

Workbook page 50-51

The goal of this lesson is to review all forms of the simple past, regular and irregular, through the context of a murder story. The lesson begins with the back cover information and extract from the story, which introduces the characters and several new past forms of irregular verbs. Sts then hear more of the story, this time on audio as the detective interviews the suspects. Sts then decide who they think the murderer was before hearing what actually happened.

Workbook page 47-48

For this lesson, people in different countries around the world were asked to write a report about a memorable night. Two written reports by a young American woman and a Turkish man provide the context for the introduction of common simple past irregular verbs. Then Sts listen to a third report by a Spanish man. The vocabulary focus is common collocations of the key verbs go, have , and get (e.g. go out, get home, etc.).

Workbook page 45-46

Simple past regular verbs are introduced in this lesson.
The context is provided by the true storv of Princess Diana’s niece who took a taxi to what she thought was Stamford Bridge Stadium (the home of Chelsea Football Club) in London, but ended up in a remote village in the north of England also called Stamford Bridge. Princess Dianas brother has three daughters and it was never established which of the three girls ended up in the wrong place, but most newspapers assumed that it was Kitty, the eldest.

Workbook page 43-44

This lesson uses the context of historical figures to introduce and practice the simple past of the verb be (was / were). The grammar is presented through a conversation between two people who are looking at a photo of Ronald and Nancy Reagan, in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. The Pronunciation and Speaking gets Sts to focus on sentence stress in simple past sentences and questions. The Reading picks up the topic of pictures of famous people at the National Portrait Gallery and then moves onto word formation, e.g. music - musician.