Life Expectancy

Life Expectancy

Look at the picture

Read the questions

Think about the topic

Pre-Reading Questions

What is life expectancy?

How do scientists determine it?

Has life expectancy increased in your country in recent years?  Why or why not?

What factors increase life expectancy?

What factors decrease life expectancy?

Saying Number in English

Here are some phrases and expressions using numbers.

When there is a decimal point in a number, we say “point.”

For example:

8.4     eight point four

5.1     five point one

79.3   seventy-nine point three

We usually say numbers after the decimal point individually, but we can also phrase them in sets of two digits.

For example: 84.59    eighty-four point five nine OR 84.59   eighty-four point fifty-nine

**For American numbers and pricing see the video below.

Say the following to your tutor or partner:

9.5

11.7

84.2

63.71

Read the text aloud to your tutor. Your tutor will listen and provide you with feedback.

Practice Speaking

Read the following out loud to your tutor.  He / She will listen and correct your pronunciation.

“Declines in death rates from most major causes — including heart disease and cancer — have pushed Americans’ life expectancy to a record 77.6 years. Women are still living longer than men, but the gap is narrowing.

Women now have a life expectancy of 80.1 years, 5.3 more than men. That’s down from 5.4 years in 2002 and continues a steady decline from a peak difference of 7.8 years in 1979, the National Center for Health Statistics said Monday in its annual mortality report.

Research indicates there also is an increase in active life expectancy, said Mary A. Salmon, a sociology professor at the University of North Carolina.

“It’s not that we’re having a lot of very old, sick people,” she said in a telephone interview.

She added, “There has been lots of speculation on how this will affect Social Security, of course.”

This is an excerpt. For full article, click here

Source:  Fox News

Talk with your tutor about this topic.

Use the expressions and vocabulary you learned.

Use the related resources below to learn more.

Talking Points

With your tutor discuss the following:

1. Why do men and women have different life expectancy rates?

2. As people live longer, what difficulties do they face? 3. What challenges must society face when dealing with a growing elderly population?

4. Who has the primary responsibility to care for senior citizens?

5. Who will take care of your parents (or grandparents) when they can no longer care for themselves?

Additional Practice

Pretend you are over 80 years old.

Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of living alone (in contrast to living with your children or in a nursing home).

Here are vocabulary words and expressions from the article:

baby boomer(s)

chronic crisis

decline(s)

expectancy

flu

gap

hypertension

kidney  

mortality

peak

pneumonia

respiratory

sociology

speculation

statistic(ally)

suicide