The whole world has gone football crazy! Especially our students at EC Cape Town, who have the great advantage of being able to party with the locals and even see a few games or two. This reading is about vuvuzela’s, the loud plastic trumpet that will be heard on TV’s everywhere for the next month. I have removed some of the verbs, in their full form, from the article so you can practise your grammar alongside your reading skills. Which verb goes in which gap?
A. defended
B. have managed
C. were sold
D. was attended
E. have been banned
F. danced
G. launched
They are the deafening African trumpets that are likely to be the abiding sound of the 2010 World Cup. Vuvuzelas may _(1)_. by some teams during their training sessions - but Channel 4 News looks at the instrument every South African fan would not be without.
As South Africa opened the World Cup, its fans _(2)_ to their own special tune: that from the African vuvuzela trumpet.
It is an instrument that has been heavily debated since making an appearance before a worldwide audience during last year's Confederations Cup.
Over the last 12 months the trumpets _(3)_ to excite and annoy in equal measure, prompting teams to lobby Fifa President Sepp Blatter to have them banned.
A host of studies were commissioned that were supposed to prove the vuvezela was as dangerous as a loaded firearm.
The FIFA President _(4)_ the trumpets, saying they are as much a part of soccer in South Africa as bongo drums or chanting.
However the Netherlands team has banned the trumpets from training, after a session on Wednesday that _(5)_ by 3,000 mainly Dutch and South African fans. And their vuvuzelas.
"It was annoying and I could not make myself audible," team coach Van Marwijk told a news conference on Friday. "That way training has no use if I can't address my players."
A national symbol
A meter long, brightly coloured and made of plastic, the vuvuzela sounds like an elephant.
The instrument is said to descend from the kudu horn - ixilongo in isiXhosa, mhalamhala in Tshivenda - blown to summon African villagers to meetings. Other versions were made of tin.
Some say the word "vuvuzela" comes from the isiZulu for "making noise", others say it's from township slang related to the word "shower", because it "showers people with music"
Cape Town-based music educator Pedro Espi-Sanchis says the vuvuzela is a rousing instrument that, when tuned correctly, can be played in an orchestra as easily as a flute, violin or cello.
In 2006 Espi-Sanchis and Thandi Swartbooi, head of the South African traditional music group Woman Unite, _(6)_ a vuvuzela orchestra as part of the Cape Town-based uMoya Music organisation.
The orchestra made its first public appearance at the Johannesburg Carnival in December 2006.
The sound of the vuvuzela
The announcement in 2004 that South Africa would host the 2010 Fifa World Cup gave the vuvuzela a huge boost. An estimated 20,000 _(7)_ on the day by enterprising street vendors.
So the world will have to get used to the sound of the vuvuzela during the next month.
Read the full article at:
http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/world/africa/vuvuzelas++the+soundtrack+of+the+world+cup/3677532
Today's lesson is by Caroline
Link: How to use Play, Do and Go
