MULTICULTURAL UK
Prof. ȘANDOR OVIDIU
Școala Gimnazială Dr. Ioan Mihalyi de Apșa, Sighetu Marmației
Grade: 8th
Level: A2+
Skills: listening, speaking, reading
Time: 40 minutes
Topic: Multiculturalism, languages and nationalities
Aims:
- To help talk about cultural diversity in the UK and in their own country
- To develop students’ listening, speaking and reading skills
- To encourage reflection and critical thinking
Aids
- Zoom cloud platform
- Devices with Internet connection
- The Multicultural UK videos on YouTube
- Multicultural UK online classroom materials
Introduction
This lesson raises students’ awareness of the UK’s cultural diversity by watching two short videos on YouTube. Students practise listening skills while watching the video, and then they discuss related topics in small groups.
Ice breaker
The teacher changes the view so that all participants are visible on the screen (e.g. gallery view in Zoom). He says, ‘Point to (name of participant).’ Everyone points to that person. He builds up to saying two or three names of participants, keeping it quick and fast paced. Then he says, ‘Show me something yellow/round/blue/that smells nice’, etc. Students have to run and fetch the item to show the group. This can be adapted to run and find items that spell a word. For example, find things that spell ‘try’. Students bring something beginning with ‘t’/’r’/’y’.
Warmer
The teacher gives the students a discussion question: Would you like to live in the UK?
Procedure
The teacher elicits vocabulary. He starts a discussion on the topic: The UK is made up of four different countries. He asks students which four countries make up the UK (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales) and if they know the capital city of each country (London, Belfast, Edinburgh, Cardiff). He encourages students to briefly tell the class about any places they’ve visited in the UK – what did they do? How was it different to their own country? If they haven’t visited the UK, he asks them where they would like to go and why.
The teacher shows students a picture with different people and the word ‘multicultural’ and asks them about the picture and if anyone can guess what the word means. He asks the students to write in the chat what they think multicultural is.
Then the teacher tells the students that they are going to watch two short videos called ‘Multicultural UK’ and asks them: What do you think the videos might contain? He also asks them to make a mental note of what they see and hear related to people, food, language. After watching the videos, the teacher asks the students to identify the differences between the UK and their country. The students can either put their hands up (most online platforms have a ‘hands up’ feature), write directly into the chat, or he could nominate students to answer orally. Then he puts the students into pairs in breakout rooms to compare their answers. He sets a time limit and then brings students back into the main room. The teacher nominates students to give feedback, checks vocabulary (he can either write up ideas on a shared whiteboard – if the platform he is using has this feature –, directly in the chat, or on a shared collaborative document.
Possible answers: the UK – very diverse, wide variety of languages spoken, different food and cultures, religions, music.
Romania: people speak Romanian, Hungarian and Ukrainean, unique legends, for example the legend of Dracula and the Dacian history, Romanians love their traditions
The teacher tells the students that they are going to talk in groups about topics related to the videos. He elicits or feeds in expressions they need to agree, disagree, to ask for and to give opinions, e.g., Yes I know what you mean, Yes you’re right, I don’t really agree, I’m not sure, Yes but…, No I don’t agree, I think…, What do you think? He can either ask them to add these to a collaborative document (if he has that feature) or he can ask them to add two more ideas in the chat.
Furthermore, the teacher shows the students a document with discussion questions on. Again, he checks if students can still see his screen when he puts them into breakout rooms. He puts students into breakout rooms (in groups of 4 or 6, depending on his group size), sets a time limit of 5-10 minutes for them to discuss the questions. They don’t need to write anything. He can ‘visit’ each breakout room during the task and make a note of any good language/common errors, etc and encourage students who are reluctant to speak. He reminds students that they can send him a chat message if they need his help. After the discussion, he brings students back into the main room and asks each group to tell the class what they said about one of the questions. The teacher encourages discussion here, by asking one student their opinion and then nominating a different student, asking ‘do you agree?’.
The teacher writes the new vocabulary or the errors that he wants to correct in the chat.
Evaluation
The teacher writes the topic of the lesson on the shared whiteboard and the students have to make a word collage (write another word perpendicular to the main word with one of the letters in it).
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Discuss these questions in your groups:
- How multicultural is your town?
- Do you speak different languages at home and at school?
- What reasons can you think of for going to live in a new country?
- What difficulties do you think you would face if you moved to a new country?
- What are the advantages of living in a multicultural society?