Starting off

How the discussion is organised will depend in large part on how familiar the students are with British culture. Encourage any who have visited Britain or have family who live there to share their impressions - this may be a good opportunity to give prominence to students who are normally quiet. You may want to start the discussion as an open brainstorm, feeding in the topic prompts after a moment or two so as to encourage them to think creatively.

The `would you like to' question needs to be quite carefully handled so it does not become a pseudo-patriotic `which is better, country X or country Y' argument. The aim is to get the students thinking about how they would feel living in a different culture, not to praise or criticise it. Therefore, an effective way to handle this might be a pros and cons brainstorm (using the board), asking the students to justify and explain their ideas.

Before your read/First reading

This will work best as a pre-reading discussion task to be done in groups. Key:

A. a (three) B. a and b C. a (true) D. a (hand) E. c (four)

Sentence construction

A challenging task, but it should be manageable with the first word(s) given. If you have time, you could put the words/phrases on cards so that the students can manipulate them physically. Of course, there are variations possible in the word order for some of the sentences. Key:

1. Is the Republic of Ireland part of Great Britain?

2. Have people in Britain always driven on the left?

3. Who drank tea with milk first, the British or the French?

4. Why are British taps not very practical?

5. Where can you take an examination in queuing?

Second reading

Key:

1. No. Great Britain = England, Scotland and Wales. The UK = England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Republic of Ireland (Eire) is a separate, sovereign country.

2. Yes, as far as we know.

3. The French.

4. Because with separate taps you can have cold or hot water, but not warm.

5. You can't… yet!

Vocabulary 1

Key:

1. scalding

2. wagon

3. minority

4. freezing

5. pressure

6. enemy

7. recognised

8. unlike

Vocabulary 2

Key:

1. freezing

2. minority

3. recognised

4. scalding

5. enemy

6. unlike

7. wagons

8. pressure

Speaking

There should be plenty of scope for discussion with this topic, but have a few suggestions ready to start them off if need be. If you choose to have the students do presentations then they will need time to prepare them, of course.

Extension

The speaking task lends itself to further writing work in the form of a poster or booklet with advice for visitors to the country, perhaps including some `dos and don'ts' for foreigners. Another extension activity would be a research project in which the students try to find (using the library, internet and other resources) out the origin of various habits, traditions and superstitions particular to their country.

Contact

Please let me know if you have any suggestions or ideas for future editions of Around English.

Peter Moran [e-mail]

TEACHER'S NOTES AND KEY

September 2008

© Pearson Education Polska 2008

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