Monday, December 18, 2023

8th grade. Unit 3. Lesson 7. From rags to riches or from riches to rags.

👉Communicative area: speaking about the rich and how they spend money

👉Active vocabulary: poor - the poor, wealth - wealthy, to make a living, charity, charitable, to make a fortune

👉Active grammar: as .... as


Look at the pictures. Do you know who these people are? What else do you know about these people?

Flash Card Deck created by Veronika Bebekh with GoConqr

Read the text. 
Which of the people from exercise above does it describe?

        There are many inspiring stories of celebrities who came from nothing and worked their way out of financial hardship, but have you ever wondered what they do with the money once they get rich? Let’s take a look at three different stories. 
         Leon Spinks is an American former professional boxer who competed from 1977 to 1995. In his eighth professional fight, he became a heavyweight champion in 1978 after defeating Muhammad Ali. Spinks won a lot of medals in the light heavyweight division. During his career, he earned 4.5 million dollars. Less than 20 years after his match with Muhammad Ali, he lost it all. Leon became homeless, had problems with the law, and wasted most of his earnings on drugs. To make a living Leon had to work as a janitor at a YMCA (the Young Men’s Christian Association) in Columbus, Nebraska, and sometimes unloaded trucks at McDonald’s, and volunteered to help the homeless. 
          Hetty Green (21 November, 1834 – 3 July, 1916), nicknamed the witch of Wall Street, was an American businesswoman and financier known as “the richest woman in America”. She was known for her wealth and was named by the Guinness Book of World Records as the “greatest miser”. She made a fortune buying real estate, investing in railroads and mines, and lending money to others. 
          However, her thriftiness (бережливость) was legendary. Hetty Green never turned on the heat or used hot water. She wore one old black dress and underwear that she changed only after they had been worn out; she did not wash her hands and she rode in an old carriage. One tale claims that Green spent half a night searching her carriage for a lost stamp worth two cents. When her son Ned broke his leg as a child, Hetty tried to get him into a free clinic for the poor. As a result, his leg did not heal properly. 
         On the other hand, Hetty could be generous with her money at times, but not in a public way. She was known for lending money below market rates to help those in need and gave money to poor families. Her generosity was private and 100% real. 
         Bill Gates and his business partner Paul Allen founded and built the world’s largest software business, Microsoft. In the process, Gates became one of the richest men in the world. In February 2014, Gates announced that he was leaving Microsoft to focus on charitable work at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In 2017, one of Gates’s firms invested $80 million into the development of a “smart city” near Phoenix, Arizona. The city of Belmont will be designed with high speed networks, driverless cars, high-speed digital networks, new manufacturing technologies and use solar energy for powering the tech-smart city.
          In April 2018, Gates announced that he was planning to work together with Google co-founder Larry Page to provide $12 million for a universal flu vaccine. The Gates Foundation will also invest $1 billion by 2023 to fund research to end malaria . 
            Gates has received numerous awards for philanthropic work. Time magazine named Gates one of the most influential people of the 20th century.





1. Do you know any other celebrities who used to be rich but wasted their fortune? Why did it happen? 
2. Is it important to be generous? Why? 
3. Is thriftiness a good quality? Can it have a negative effect on your life? 
4. Would you like to be as rich as Bill Gates? What would you spend your money on? 
5. What do you think about charity? Is it important for our society? 6. Should the rich help the poor? 
7. Do you know any charity organisations in Belarus? Have you ever donated money to them?





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