Form 7 Unit 3. An Unusual Hobby

Тема: Unusual hobbies. Penspinning. Form 7 Unit 3. (Разработка рассчитана на несколько уроков. Можно использовать для организации групповой работы. У меня эта тема проходит как самостоятельная работа в курсе Moodle c последующим тестом.)

Подготовительный этап:

I. Pens not for writing
In penspinning pens are used not for writing but for something different.
There’s a little community of people who are aptly named ‘pen spinners’. Pen spinners spin a pen around their fingers in endless creative ways. Some call it a hobby, some think it’s a form of art.
To see it you should go and watch some videos on YouTube, for that is the place where pen
spinner demonstrate their skills and share their experience and new tricks.

Vocabulary:
community — сообщество; объединение
aptly — соответственно
spin — крутить, вертеть
around — вокруг
endless — бесконечный
creative — творческий
art — искусство
share — делиться
skill — мастерство, умение, способность
experience — опыт

II. The UPSB website
You can also find information about pen spinning on the forums of the Universal Pen Spinning Board (UPSB) website. But, every now and then, you might just glimpse one sit in front of you in class, or across the office.

Vocabulary:
to glimpse — увидеть мельком

III. Forms of the hobby
Of course, pen spinners not only spin pens, that’s the basis of it. But that can take many
forms. Some like to compare tricks or invent new ones, some prefer to compete in pen
spinning battles.

Vocabulary:
spin — крутить, вертеть
basis — основа
take forms — принимать формы
compare — сравнивать
compete — соревноваться

IV. Time and practice
Pen spinning takes huge amounts of time and practice. It only takes a few minutes to watch a tutorial video and learn the technique for each trick. Practising may take every minute of your free time throughout the day whenever you have a pen in your spare hand.

Vocabulary:
to take time — требовать времени
throughout — в течение

V. Modding
Another large part of the community is based around ‘modding‘ — modifying various pens to aid spinning technique — which often involves trading ‘mods‘ or sharing and comparing
designs.

Special pens are used for spinning — modded pens.

A modded pen is a normal pen which we take and add things to them to balance them and
make them easier to spin. Each country has its own special modded pens.
One should start learning pen spinning tricks with special pens. But it doesn’t mean that with a proper pen you’ll become a better spinner. If you can spin with a pencil, you can spin with almost anything.
Vocabulary:
community — сообщество; объединение
modding — модифицирование, изменение
to aid — помогать, оказывать помощь, поддержку
to share — делиться
to compare — сравнивать
proper — правильный, надлежащий

VI. History
Nobody knows for sure who was the first to start this hobby, but it certainly has its roots in
Asia, especially South Korea where it is far more widely known than in the US or UK.
The community in its current form though is a product of the good old interweb — the pen
spinning pastimes only became widely possible with the invention of YouTube, social media
and online forums, like the UPSB.
For more information follow this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pen_spinning
Vocabulary:
invent — придумывать, изобретать
roots — корни
widely — широко
current — нынешний, современный

VII. Tournaments
The first world tournament of spinning, or ‘Pendolosa’, was organised by Alex Simpson, a
20-year-old multimedia student at Greenwich University, in 2007.
He said: ‘I’m organising the tournament because there are a lot of spinners in the world but they all have their own different boards.»
‘Each board holds internal tournaments, but a world tournament in pen spinning has never been done before, and I’m sure it will be something that will continue each year.
‘This tournament will be a demonstration of each board’s pen spinning, and will also be a
demonstration of some of the best pen spinning in the world at the moment.’
Contestants will be scored out of 10 on smoothness, speed, difficulty and creativity, giving a
top score of 40. Special moves will earn extra.
Alex said: ‘We’ll be looking out for Thumbaround (pen spinning 360 around the thumb), Sonic 23 12 (pen jumping from your 2nd and 3rd finger, to your 1st and 2nd finger in a rotation fashion) and also hundreds of combos, linking tricks together to form freestyles. [From Tatiana: These are all the names of pen spinning tricks]

Of course, participants take part distantly, they upload their videos on YouTube.