Nikola Tesla (British English, A2-B1)

This mini-biography graded ESL lesson covers the works of the legendary engineer and inventor Nikola Tesla.
This lesson is designed for students A2 and slightly higher levels of English.
For teachers: get the lesson plan here www.linguahous...
Transcript:
Nikola Tesla was born in 1856 in Croatia. He was a very clever child - at school his teachers were surprised to see him doing difficult maths problems in his head. When he was 14, Tesla left home to study science and engineering.
In 1884, Tesla decided to move to New York City. At that time, many scientists were working to find ways to bring electricity to cities. One important scientist was Thomas Edison, and Tesla went to work for him, improving and creating new products.
The two men had some disagreements, so Tesla started his own business. At first, he was unsuccessful because his business partners stole his ideas. However, he found some new partners and in his second business, he invented a new system to bring electricity safely to buildings over long distances. This was called alternating current, or AC.
Tesla’s earlier partner Edison was developing another electrical system called direct current, or DC. The two men fought hard to make their own system the winner in these ”Current Wars.” With the help of a powerful businessman called George Westinghouse, AC became the main system used in the USA. Westinghouse and Tesla also used hydroelectric energy for the first time to bring electricity from Niagara Falls to the large city of Buffalo, New York.
Tesla then started to work on a way to send information and even electricity from one place to another without using wires. Although he started building a huge tower to send information and power around the world, this project was not successful.
Tesla never married. He worked very hard all his life - he only slept 2 or 3 hours each night. He had a strong imagination and could plan his inventions in his head. As he grew older, Tesla’s ideas developed in unusual ways. He became interested in photographing people’s memories and in producing a weapon called a death ray. He died in 1943, aged 86.
Tesla is remembered today as the inventor of the technology which makes our modern life possible. To remember his achievements, his name was given to the electric car company, Tesla Motors, in 2003.