The Human Tower, one

 
 
 

Vocabulary

safe	century	community
tower	tradition	celebrate
base	festival	dangerous
climb	attract	competition
layer	dozen	date back
team	attend	win/won/won
worry

 
 

 
 

Video One

 

 
 
 
 

Transcript

Don’t worry. This is safer than it looks.

These human towers or “castells” are a big Catalan tradition.

Every year in Girona, the community celebrates the Sant Narcis Festival by building a castell.

First the biggest castellers come together to build a base.

Then, more and more layers of castellers build on top.

The smallest casteller — which is usually a child — is called the “enxaneta”, and it’s their job to climb to the top.

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Video Two

 

 
 
 
 

Transcript

Thousands of people have attended the twenty-sixth (26th) Human Towers Competition in Spain.

The Concurs de Castells, held every two years in Catalonia, attracts dozens of teams.

Each team carefully builds a tower, and children make the dangerous climb to the top.

This year’s even was won by a group from Vtafranca in southern Spain.

The sport is a tradition in Spain, dating back to the eighteenth century.

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Questions

1. Is the human towers a recent activity or is it an old tradition?

2. Is this in America? Making human towers takes place all over Spain or just the Catalonia region?

3. The people simply go and create a human tower. True or false? They simply decide one day to make a tower.

4. Who is at the base, the middle and the top of the tower?

5. The participants wear shoes and business suits. Is this right or wrong? What do they wear?

6. Does only one or do many teams build human towers?

7. This is a contest with winners. Is this correct or incorrect?

 
 

A. I have seen human towers. Yes or no?

B. I would like to visit Spain and see the human towers performance.

C. Would you like to be part of a human tower?

D. Are there traditional festivals in your city, region or country?

E. What will happen in the future?