logoKate Princess of Wales

Princess Kate

The ordinary girl who will be Queen

A2 - B1  simple English

Linguapress




WITH AUDIO ►: Click to open/close audio player

 She's one of the best-known women in the world. Her official name is Catherine, Princess of Wales; but for many people she is just Kate. Sometimes she's still called by her original name, Kate Middleton.


Starmer talks to the BBC
William and Kate at an official event

    One day, "Kate" will be the Queen of England. Once she was just an ordinary girl, Miss Kate Middleton, the daughter of Mr. & Mrs. Middleton. Kate is short for Catherine, or for Katherine,  and it's always written with a "K".
    Kate was born in 1982, the first of three children. Both her parents worked for British Airways.
    Her mother is from an ordinary family from the north of England; some of her ancestors worked in the coal mines. Kate's father comes from a family of lawyers and businessmen.
    Kate was educated in private schools, and as a teenager she went to Marlborough College, a famous school in the south of England. She was good at sport, and was captain of the girls' hockey team.
    In 2001 she went to St. Andrew's University, in the east of Scotland. She studied Art History, and met another student called William. William was actually Prince William, the grandson of the Queen, and he was studying geography.
    The two lived in an apartment  with some other students. After university Kate and William went different ways, but they remained friends. By then Kate, William's girlfriend, was a celebrity, the most famous woman in Britain. Wherever she went there were people with cameras.... too many cameras. In 2010 William asked Kate to marry him, and she said yes.
    They were married next year, on St. Catherine's Day, in Westminster Abbey, London.  After their wedding, they became the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.  In 2013 their first son was born; they called him George, after his great-grandfather King George VI.  Later, Kate had two other children, Charlotte and Louis.
    Then in 2022 Queen Elizabeth II died, and William's father, Prince Charles, became King Charles. Soon after, William became the Prince of Wales, the historic name of the first son of the English king. Kate, his wife, became the Princess of Wales.
    Kate and William had a very busy life; they were very popular, so lots of people wanted to meet them. They went on official visits, they opened new buildings, they went to conferences.... they had a very busy life indeed.
    However at the start of 2024, Kate went into hospital with a medical problem. Soon doctors announced that she had a type of cancer. She had to stop her public life, while doctors treated her condition. They were successful, and in the summer Kate began doing things in public again.
    Everyone hopes that her cancer will not come back. One day Prince William will become the next King of England, and then "Kate Middleton" will become queen.


Word guide
WORDS official: formal - original: first - ancestors; past generations of a family - coal: a black rock that can be burned -  lawyer: professional of the law -  hockey: a ball game played on grass (not on ice!) - actually: really, in fact  - remain: continue to be, stay -  wherever: everywhere, every place -  wedding: marriage ceremony -  busy: active - announce: say, proclaim -  cancer: a serious illness -

Return to Linguapress site index

Printing: Optimized for printing
Copyright
© Linguapress.  Do not copy this document to any other website
Copying permitted for personal study, or by teachers for use with their students

   

Student Worksheet

Kate - the ordinary girl who will be Queen

Interactive exercise - use on screen or on paper: Missing words
Twenty words have been omitted from this copy of part of the text. Try to put them back by memory. Take care with spelling!  .

Kate is  for Catherine, or for Katherine,  and  always  with a "K".
    Kate was  in 1982, the first of three children.  her parents worked for British Airways.
    Her mother is from an  family from the north of England; some of her  worked in the coal mines. Kate's father comes from a family of  and businessmen.
    Kate was educated in private schools, and as a  she went to Marlborough College, a famous school in the  of England. She was good  sport, and was captain of the girls' hockey .
    In 2001 she went to St.  University, in the east of Scotland. She studied Art History, and   another student called William. William was  Prince William, the  of the Queen, and he studying geography.
    The two lived in an apartment  with some students. After university Kate and William went different  , but they remained  . By then Kate, William's girlfriend, was a celebrity, the most famous woman in Britain.

 

Creative writing: question forming

Students should imagine themselves in the position of a journalist, interviewing Kate for  a newspaper in their country. They should think up at least six questions to ask.
    Here are the beginnings of six different questions. You can write your questions in the box, or on a sheet of paper.
When   ?    
Where    ?
Why   ?
Did you   ?
Do you think   ?
Have you   ?

 

For teachers:

Word fill exercise

Some of the missing words are just useful words or expressions to check, such as short for or both.  Others are new vocabulary. Students may like to do this exercise in pairs. Alternatively it can be done as a class exercise, projected on the white board.


Language points:

Family relations: this text is full of vocabulary to express family relations.  Son, daughter, parents, mother, father, ancestors, grandson, great-grandfather, children.
   Teachers . Have students check their family relations vocabulary by defining all the relationships indicated with a red line on this chart. Express the relations in both directions, i.e. Prince George is Princess Charlotte's brother, she is his sister.
   A useful term that is not in the text is "in-law", as in father-in-law.  King Charles is Kate's father-in-law, Kate is Charles's daughter-in-law.... and so on. An in-law is a parent / grandparent / child by marriage.
family relations
Cardinal points:  the text mentions north, south and east. Ask students which cardinal point is not mentioned? Clue: it is often associated with cowboys.

Queen of England:  
The "Queen of England" is the Queen of the United Kingdom; she is Queen of Scotland, of Northern Ireland and Wales too.... but it is normal to use the title "Queen of England", which is the oldest of the British queen's many titles. We do not say the Queen of Britain... though we do say the British monarchy.

Everyone, everywhere, wherever
Normally Everyone and everywhere are indefinite pronouns.... but wherever is an adverb.
Adverbs cannot be used as the subject of a sentence, but pronouns, of course, can. So ...
However everywhere can also be used as an adverb, so it could be used as an alternative to wherever in the example in the text above.

Phonetics. Standard English pronunciation (IPA transcription). Note the word lawyer [ˈlɔɪ jə] which rhymes with Goya.
Note that Kate rhymes with date, not with cat.

More....   What is A2 English? What does it entail?

Other ideas?

EFL teachers: Help develop this resource by contributing extra teaching materials or exercises.
To contribute click here for further details



This teaching resource is © copyright Linguapress 2024
Republication on other websites or in print is not authorised



Linguapress; home Découvrez l'Angleterre (en français) Discover Britain



A Linguapress.com
Low-intermediate level EFL resource

This text:  Level: low-intermediate.
CEFR  LEVEL : A2 - B1
IELTS Level :  4
Flesch-Kincaid  scores
Reading ease level:
80  - Fairly easy
 
Grade level: 6 - 8


Also from Linguapress......


More English study resources from Linguapress
Advanced level reading : a selection
California's water wars
The electric car revolution
Steaming on the Mississippi  with audio
Britain, at any cost ?
The Queen who almost wasn't  with audio
Tea and the British with audio
Woody Guthrie, the Dustbowl baladeer
Crime time basketball
Advanced level short stories:
For Elise  by Pamela Garza with audio
A Suitable Job  by Lindsay Townsend
And lots more:  More advanced reading texts  
Intermediate reading :
Profession : Cowboy
George Washington    with audio
Fast food, OK?   Dialogue with audio
Robin Hood, fact or fiction?  
Black taxis going green 
Sport:  The story of the Derby  with audio
USA: Still looking for gold !  
USA: The story of Coca-Cola 
And more:  More intermediate reading texts  
Selected grammar pages
Online English grammar
Phrasal verbs in English
Word stress in English with audio
Reported questions in English
And some other pages
Language and style 
Word games for EFL/ ESL
Pages for teachers
Texts on the environment





Copyright notice.

.
This resource is © copyright Linguapress renewed 2024

Photo top of page - Creative Commons 2 photo from "The Big Lunch"
Second photo: Public domain photo from US Department of State

Multi-copying of this resource is permitted for classroom use.
Copyright
Free to view, free to share,  free to use in class, free to print, but not free to copy..
If you like this page and want to share it with others,  just share a link, don't copy.