ESL WORKSHEET - Katherine Johnson

LESSON PLAN FOR ENGLISH TEACHERS

KATHERINE JOHNSON

LinguaHouse

Mar. 15, 2022

Level: Intermediate (B1-B2)
Type of English: General English
Tags: Celebrities and Historical Figures; American Culture; Historical Events; 16-18 Years Old; 13-15 Years Old; 18+ Years Old; Vocabulary and Grammar
Publication date: 03/15/2022

This audio-aided lesson tells the life story of the pioneering African American mathematician and space scientist Katherine Johnson (1918-2020). The lesson focuses on vocabulary, listening comprehension, and speaking and includes a short look at past perfect forms. There is also an optional extension activity about a range of toys that honors women’s achievements. (by Stephanie Hirschman)

• CLICK HERE to download the student’s worksheet in American English.
• CLICK HERE to download the teacher’s lesson plan in American English.
• CLICK HERE to download the student’s worksheet in British English.
• CLICK HERE to download the teacher’s lesson plan in British English.
• CLICK HERE to download/listen to the audio in American English.
• CLICK HERE to download/listen to the audio in British English.

AUDIO TRANSCRIPT

Historian: Katherine Johnson was born in 1918 in West Virginia, USA. Her father was a farmer, and her mother was a housewife but had been a teacher. Education was very important to the family, but African American students in her town had to leave school at fourteen. So, her father arranged for his children to attend school in another town. Johnson was a brilliant student and skipped several years at school. She graduated from college with a degree in mathematics and French at the age of eighteen and became a teacher.
In 1953, she began working at NACA, a government space travel organization. They needed to make complicated calculations with a high degree of accuracy but at that time, the computer technology to do this had not been developed yet. Instead, NACA hired women to do the calculations using only an adding machine, pencil, and paper. Johnson’s mathematical skills meant that she was of great value to the organization as a human “computer.” However, NACA was a difficult place to work. Women were not given credit on official reports for the work they had done, and they were not invited to important meetings.
Furthermore, segregation meant that African American women had to work in separate offices and could not share bathrooms or dining facilities with other staff. When the organization changed its name to NASA in 1958, this segregation ended. However, Johnson and other women still had to insist on attending meetings, even without invitations, and fight for the right to be listed as authors.
After electronic computers became available, Johnson’s mathematical experience was still crucial to key projects. In 1961, she planned the flight path and landing area for astronaut Alan Shepard on the first manned American space mission. In 1962, she did the same for John Glenn, the first American to orbit the earth. In fact, Glenn had such respect for Johnson’s work that he refused to fly until she had checked the computer calculations herself. Johnson also worked on the Apollo 11 and Apollo 13 moon missions.
On the disastrous Apollo 13 mission, Johnson found a way for the astronauts to return to earth safely using their own observations of stars to guide them. She later worked on the Space Shuttle, satellite launches, and even Mars missions before her retirement in 1986. It took another thirty years for Johnson to receive recognition for the pioneering work she had done. In 2015, US President Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the following year, NASA named a building after her.
Also, in 2016, a book called Hidden Figures told the true story of Johnson and other African American women who worked for NASA and in 2017, a fictionalized film of the same name was released, which focused on the experiences of Johnson, Dorothy Vaughn, and Mary Jackson. This film received many awards. Johnson’s work paved the way for more women and people of color to work for NASA and in other related fields. She died in 2020.

Adapted from: https://www.linguahouse.com/esl-lesson-plans/general-english/katherine-johnson. Accessed on July 5, 2024. © 2008–2024 LinguaHouse.com. All rights reserved.