News-based English language activities from the global newspaper

July 2009
Level ≥ Lower intermediate
Style ≥ Lesson plan
Welcome to the Guardian Weekly’s special news-based materials to support learners and teachers of English.
Each month, the Guardian Weekly newspaper selects topical news articles that can be used to practise English
language skills. The materials are graded for two levels: advanced and lower intermediate. These worksheets
can be downloaded free from guardianweekly.co.uk/learningenglish/. You can also find more advice for
teachers and learners on the site.

Tetris still challenges gamers 25 years on

Materials prepared by Janet Hardy-Gould

Instructions
Lesson focus: reading, discussion, past simple revision
Materials sheet: copies of the article
Time: 55 minutes

1 Tell the class that the lesson is about a classic game that
has been a huge success. Establish the words in italics. Di-
vide the class into three teams. Write up and explain the
following words one by one: 25 years old, blocks, fall, in-
furiating, screen, line, column. After each word, the teams
take it in turns to guess the name of the game. Only con-
firm the correct answer at the end – do this by showing
the photo of Tetris from the article. Elicit a brief descrip-
tion of how the game works. 12 mins
2 Dictate the following questions: Do you like video
games? Have you ever played Tetris? What was the first
video game you ever played? Students in pairs ask and
answer the questions. Class feedback. Ask some stu-
dents to report back their partner’s answers. 7 mins
3 Write up the following questions and go through any
unknown words. Hand out the article. Students read and
write yes (Y) or no (N) next to the statements. Class feed-
back. 10 mins
Tetris …
a [ ] was invented by a young Russian man.
b [ ] was written on a small home computer.
c [ ] had scoring at the beginning.
d [ ] has sold over 70 million copies.
e [ ] became very popular in 1984.
f [ ] was included with all Game Boys.
g [ ] made a lot of money for Pajitnov in the 1980s.
Answers: a Y b N c N d Y e N f Y g N
4 Write up the following questions. Students read again
and find the answers. 6 mins
a Why did Pajitnov write Tetris?
b What has Tetris influenced?
c Who brought Tetris to the world market?
d Why didn’t Pajitnov make a lot of money at first?
Answers: a For fun. b Art and music. c Henk Rogers. d
The rights belonged to the Soviet state.
5 Tell students to turn over the article. What can they
remember about the story? Elicit key information as
a class. Use this opportunity to revise the past simple.
7 mins
6 Now tell students they are going to wait for seven hours
at an airport in between connecting flights. They can
take one of the following things to amuse themselves: a
Game Boy with Tetris, a crossword book, a pack of cards,
a novel, an MP3 player, a newspaper, a pen and paper.
Students work with a partner and explain their choice.
What does their choice of object indicate about their in-
terests/character? 8 mins
News-based English language activities from the global newspaper
Materials sheet
Student tasks
Read the article and write yes (Y) or no (N) next to the
statements.
Tetris …
a was invented by a young Russian man.
b was written on a small home computer.
c had scoring at the beginning.
d has sold over 70 million copies.
e became very popular in 1984.
f was included with all Game Boys.
g made a lot of money for Pajitnov in the 1980s.
Read the article again and find the answers to these
questions.
a Why did Pajitnov write Tetris?
b What has Tetris influenced?
c Who brought Tetris to the world market?
d Why didn’t Pajitnov make a lot of money at first?
July 2009
Article: Tetris still challenges
gamers 25 years on
1 Tetris, the infuriating video game, is 25 years old this
year. It is now a quarter of a century since a 29-year-old
Russian started writing programs for fun on a huge Soviet
computer.
2 “I started to put together all kinds of mathematical puzzles
that I had loved all my life,” said Alexey Pajitnov, now 54.
3 After a few experiments there was one game that stood
out from the others and Tetris was born. “The program
wasn’t complicated,” he said. “There was no scoring, no
levels. But I started playing and I couldn’t stop.”
4 The idea is simple: from the top of the screen a series of
“blocks” fall slowly towards the bottom. The player can
turn each block as it falls – making a line into a column, for
example – but once it hits the lowest point, it stays. If the
blocks fill a line without gaps, they disappear. Otherwise
they pile up, giving the player less and less time before
they hit the “bottom”.
5 Simple, but very addictive. So far, the game has sold more
than 70m copies; it has influenced art and music; and it is
regularly voted one of the top games of all time.
6 In 1985 a PC version spread around eastern Europe. But it
was in 1988 that things started to accelerate.
7 “I first saw it at the Electronics Show in Las Vegas in
1988,” said Henk Rogers, a Dutch games publisher.
He understood the game’s appeal and he beat strong
competition to agree on a deal to include Tetris with every
Nintendo Game Boy.
8 But Pajitnov made little from the game’s early success
because the rights were owned by the Soviet state. He had
to wait until 1996 – when the rights reverted to him – to
begin making money.
9 The secret of the game’s success? “I think that most of
the classic games of the 1980s or 1990s are dead because
their authors or owners didn’t care about them,” said
Pajitnov.
Original article by Bobbie Johnson, rewritten by
Janet Hardy-Gould