This funny episode is taken from the movie «The Sleepy Hollow» (1980). Ichabod Crane, the main character of the story, has come to teach children in a small village, situated in an isolated valley. As I am quite fascinated by the story, I would like to share my emotions with my readers. The video has the text of the dialogues. Also there are some extracts from the story «The Legend of the Sleepy Hollow» by Washington Irving.
Now it is time for you to go to the Sleepy Hollow, one of the quietest places in the whole world, where long ago lived the descendants of the Dutch settlers. Let us go there! But to enter it, you must answer 3 questions.
An Extract from «Legend of the Sleepy Hollow» by Washington Irving (adapted)
1. What is the Sleepy Hollow? Read the extract and find the answer:
- drowsy — сонный
- bewitch — заколдовать
- spell — чары, заклинание
This isolated valley is known by the name of SLEEPY HOLLOW. A drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over the land and creates the very atmosphere. Some people say that the place was bewitched by an old Indian chief during the early days of the settlement. Certainly, there is a spell over the minds of the local people. They believe in ghosts, often see strange sights and hear music and voices in the air. Stars shoot and meteors glare more often across the valley than in any other part of the country, and the nightmare seems to make it the favorite place of her walks.
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2. Who is Ichabod Crane? Read the extract and find the answer:
- shovel — совок
- weathercock — флюгер
- scarecrow — пугало
Some person by the name of Ichabod Crane was sent for the purpose of instructing the children in this valley. He was a schoolmaster. The nickname of Crane was suitable to his person. He was tall with narrow shoulders, long arms and legs, hands that stuck a mile out of his sleeves, feet that might have served for shovels. His head was small, with huge ears, large green glassy eyes, and a long nose, so that it looked like a weathercock perched upon the roof to tell which way the wind blew. To see him walking along a hill on a windy day, with his clothes bagging and fluttering about him, one might have mistaken him for some scarecrow escaped from a cornfield.
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3. Where does the action of the video take place? Read the extract and find the answer:
- murmur — бормотание
- hum of bee-hive — жужжание в улье
- urge — подстегивать (зд. возвращать)
His school-house was a low building of one large room, made of logs, the windows partly glazed and partly patched with leaves of old copybooks. The school-house stood rather lonely just at the foot of a woody hill, with a brook running close by and a huge birch tree growing at one end of it. From hence the low murmur of his pupils’ voices might be heard in a drowsy summer’s day like the hum of a bee-hive, interrupted now and then by the loud voice of the master in the tone of command, or, by the appalling sound of the birch as he urged some naughty boy along the path of knowledge.
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An episode from the movie «The Sleepy Hollow» (1980)
1. Learn the words to the video:
- owl — сова
- Chief Running Buffalo — индейский вождь Бегущий Буйвол
- dead Indian — мертвый индеец
- stuff — ерунда
- cemetery — кладбище
- spirits — духи
- ghost — привидение
- be haunted for years — долгое время посещают привидения
- headless horseman — всадник без головы
- garlic — чеснок
2. Watch the video and answer the questions:
- Who was the ghost of Chief Running Buffulo?
- Who was the headless horseman?
- Why was the teacher angry?
- What was there over the door? Why?
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