This mini-biography graded ESL lesson is about the American astronaut and first man on the moon, Neil Armstrong.
This lesson is designed for students A2 and slightly higher levels of English.
For teachers: get the lesson plan here [ Ссылка ]
Transcript:
Neil Armstrong was born in 1930, in Ohio, in the United States. He was always interested in planes and flying. He learned how to fly a plane before he could drive a car! After high school, he went to college and joined the US Navy as a pilot.
In the 1950s, the United States and the Soviet Union were in a race to send the first person into space. In 1961, the Soviets were winning when Yuri Gagarin traveled around the Earth. The US space agency NASA wanted to beat that by sending astronauts to the Moon. Neil Armstrong joined NASA in the 1960s and learned how to fly a spacecraft. His first trip into space was in 1966.
In 1969, NASA was planning a Moon landing, with three astronauts in the crew: Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins. On July 16th, 1969, Neil Armstrong and the other astronauts left Earth in the Apollo 11 spacecraft to travel 236,121 miles (380,000km) to the Moon. It took four days.
When they arrived, Michael Collins stayed in the main part of the spacecraft in orbit around the Moon while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin flew a smaller part of the spacecraft to the Moon. Neil left the spacecraft first and stepped onto the Moon, saying "That's one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind." The whole world was watching on television.
The two astronauts stayed on the Moon for over two hours, collecting rocks and planting an American flag. They then returned to the main spacecraft and flew back to Earth. They landed in thePacific Ocean and a US Navy ship picked them up.
The USA was very proud that Americans were the first people to walk on the Moon. They organized a parade to welcome the astronauts home. Neil Armstrong became a professor and then a businessman. He died in 2012, at 82 years old. The Apollo 11 astronauts made it possible for five more American missions to visit the Moon. They showed that people can work together to make impossible dreams come true.
