English language &civilization

English language &civilization Approaching

the English Speaking World

a curricular project for the first biennio

of the liceo for humanities

module number

plan

4 modules a year

Language level at the end of the whole project

b1 level of the c.e.f.

Curricular plan for the 1^st year

module 1. The United Kingdom

module 2. Eire: the Republic of Ireland

module 3. U.S.A.

module 4. Canada

Curricular plan for the 2^nd year

Module 5. Australia

Module 6. New Zealand

Module 7. India

Module 8. South Africa

Module

Title

Eire, the Republic of Ireland

Addressees

1^st class of the liceo for humanities

Language level at the end of the module

a2 level

Hours

Teaching units

u.1 Irish people, Irish way (4)

u.2 Geography (2)

u.3 History (3)

u.4 What to eat & drink (3)

u.5 Dublin’s fairy city (3)

u.6 “Cockles and Mussels”: an Irish folk song (2)

Assessment (3)

Pre-requisites

(knowledge and communicative activities relative to the previous module)

· Grammar (to) have to/don’t have to; have used for exclamation; be allowed; prepositions/adverbs of time and place

· Lexis The time; vocabulary related to British geography; British people, their everyday routines, their food and drinks, their hobbies; Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales; the Union Jack; other flags

· Functions Describing people; talking about geographic characteristics of a country: (position, cardinal points, rivers, lakes, mountains, etc); talking about British cities; talking about everyday routines; talking about British hobbies; asking for and saying the time

(Functions mainly related to the personal domain)

· Can do statements (a1 level)

1. overall listening comprehension Can follow speech slow and well articulated, with pauses to assimilate meaning, dealing with personal information, daily routines, hobbies, British places

2. overall reading comprehension Can understand very short, simple texts a single phrase at a time, picking up personal information, hobbies, name of places

3. overall spoken production Can produce simple phases about themselves, people, hobbies, places

4. interaction Can introduce themselves, use basic greetings and leave-taking expressions; can ask how people are; can understand everyday expressions (can say what they do during the day, can say what they usually eat, etc.); can ask for and say the time

5. overall written production Can write simple isolated phrases and sentences

6. creative writing Can write simple phrases and sentences about themselves and people, where they live, their hobbies; can write a simple post-card to a British friend

Objectives

· Grammar Consolidation of prepositions/adverbs of time and place; adverbs of frequency; comparatives and superlatives; a lot (of); much and many; introducing the past simple

· Lexis Vocabulary for describing Irish people, hobbies, celebrations, typical food and drinks; the Guinness Brewery; lexis for describing natural surroundings; the Irish geography; public transport; attractions and places of public interest in Dublin

· Functions Talking about personal past experiences; talking about Irish people, hobbies; talking about Irish geographic aspects; ordering food and drinks; talking about Irish celebrations, cultural and leisure activities; describing Dublin’s fair city

(Some aspects are related to the public domain).

Can do statements to be achieved (a2 level)

1. overall listening comprehension Can understand and extract the essential information from short recorded passages concerning the Irish way of living, Attractions in Dublin, interviews to young Dubliners speaking about their daily activities; can understand the global meaning of an Irish folk song

2. overall reading comprehension Can understand short texts on familiar matters; can identify specific information in written materials such as letters, informative leaflets, short newspaper articles

3. overall spoken production Can describe and present people; can describe the Irish way of living, can talk about daily routines

4. spoken Interaction Can ask and answer questions and exchange ideas on the Irish way of living, and can compare it to their own; can get information about food and drinks, public transport

5. overall written production Can link written phrases and sentences by using simple connectors like “and”, “but”, “because”

6. creative writing Can write very short geographic and cultural descriptions of Ireland; can write about Irish people and hobbies; can write short descriptions of past activities and personal experiences

7. computer mediating interaction Can write emails to

Irish friends, giving and asking for personal

Information and talking about their ways of living

Strategies to be developed:

· Reception strategies (written)

Identifying cues and inferring: Can use a word or an idea of the overall meaning of short texts on everyday topics to derive the meaning of unknown words from the context

· Interaction strategies

Turntaking: Can initiate, maintain and close simple,

face-to-face conversation; can ask for attention

co-operating: Can indicate when they are following by uttering simple phrases (e.g. “yes, I see”; “I agree”)

asking for clarification: Can ask very simply for repetition when they do not understand

· Production strategies (spoken)

Compensating: Can identify what they mean by pointing to it (e.g. “I’m speaking about this”; can use an inadequate word and clarify what they want to say by using gesture

Cross-curricular Capabilities

· Summarising

· Note-taking

· Finding out “cause-effect” nexus

· Locating facts in their field

Competences involved

· General competences

- Declarative knowledge: students are expected to know about Ireland in terms of geographic, historical, economic and political factors; they know specific Irish sociocultural aspects related to everyday life, such as food and drinks, meal times, celebrations, leisure activities, etc.)

- Skills and know-how: students can use receptively a web-site, in order to get all the information needed; they can interact with Irish students via e-mail

- Existential competence: they are open towards, and interested in, new experiences, other persons, ideas, societies and cultures; they are ready to relativise their cultural viewpoint and value-system, to overcome cultural stereotypes

· Linguistic competences

- Range of language: repertoire of basic language, i.e.

memorised phrases, sentence patterns and brief expressions

about themselves, people, daily routines, places, requests for

information

- Vocabulary range: sufficient vocabulary for expressing basic communicative needs and daily routines

- Grammatical accuracy: correct use of simple structures

- Orthographic control: writing correctly words available in their oral vocabulary

· Sociolinguistic competences

- Being able to recognize different accents

- Choosing the right language register according to the context

· Pragmatic competences

- Coherence: their descriptions are linked by very simple connectors, in so that they appear as simple lists of points

- Flexibility: expanding learned phrases through simple recombination of their elements, limited lexical substitution

Texts to be used

· Spoken Spoken dialogues, films about Dublin, Irish speech, the Irish folk song “Cockles and Mussels”

· Written Written dialogues, short reading passages from books, informative leaflets about Irish places, presentations and descriptions of Irish families, Irish proverbs, the text song of “Cockles and Mussels”, list of difficult words

· Interactive Web-sites, web-pages, emails

tasks to be performed

- key-words and key-concepts searching

- skimming and scanning activities

- Reading comprehension + questionnaires

- Listening comprehension + questionnaires

- completing grids

- matching activities

- Oral accounts

- Getting information through interviews

……

- Writing descriptions

- Writing summaries

- Writing a mail to an irish friend

- Searching on a web-site: collecting as much information as possible about a given place in Dublin

for some examples of task-type, see page 13

Techniques

- individual reading activities

- listening activities

- ……….

- Pair-works

- Group-works

- Simulation exercises

- Information-gap activities

- Role-plays

- Discussion activities

Remedial work

It must be defined according to any possible

unexpected variable.

Typical remedial exercises are:

- Multiple choice questions

- Scrambled letters exercises (for spelling)

- Scrambled sentences exercises (for syntactic structures)

- Matching activities

- Completing grids

- Clozes

Materials and Aids

· Textbook

· Magazines

· Photocopies

· Cards

· Informative leaflets

· Board

· CDs

· CD player

· Video-cassettes

· Video tape-recorder

· Multimedia lab

· A list of Irish students’ mail-addresses

Assessment

Oral test: Class discussion

Discuss about Ireland and express what you know from a geographic, historical and social point of view.

Descriptors to be taken into account	marks
Content	0,5 - 2
Incomplete	0,5
Sufficient	1
Well articulated	2
Grammatical correctness	0,5 - 2
Too many mistakes	0,5
Sufficient	1
Accurate	2
lexis	0,5 - 2
Inadequate	0,5
Simple but adequate	1
Various and original	2
Communicative effectiveness	0,5 - 2
Insufficient interaction	0,5
Very simple interaction	1
More strategic interaction	2
pronunciation	0,5 - 2
Incorrect	0,5
Sufficiently clear	1
Accurate	2

Tot. _________/10

written test: What are the most important events in the history of Ireland? Summarize Irish history by using the information you have gathered about it. Your report must be about 20 lines long.

(Before writing this report students have watched a short film on the history of Ireland; they have also read a passage concerning the most relevant historical events of the country.)

Descriptors to be taken into account	marks
Content	0,5 - 2
Incomplete	0,5
Sufficient	1
Well articulated	2
Grammatical correctness	0,5 - 2
Too many mistakes	0,5
Sufficient	1
Accurate	2
lexis	0,5 - 2
Inadequate	0,5
Simple but adequate	1
Various and original	2
Cohesion and coherence	0,5 - 2
Insufficient use of connectors	0,5
Use of basic connectors	1
Coherent and cohesive text	2
Spelling and punctuaction	0,5 - 2
Incorrect	0,5
Sufficient	1
Accurate	2

Tot. _________/10

Examples of tasks to accomplish

· Getting information on a web-site (task to accomplish in pairs in the lab)

Step a: Connect to the web and try to find the site of the “Guinness Brewery” ( How? Through a search engine?)

Step b: Now try to get as much information as possible on it and answer the following questions:

1. What city is the Guinness Brewery in?

2. What street?

3. When was it founded?

4. Who founded the Brewery?

5. What does it produce?

6. Which ingredients are involved in the productive process? (…)

(Aims of the task): to promote students’ autonomy; to carry on a non-linguistic task by using the language; to promote students’ scanning strategies

· A Role-play: asking for and giving information at the railway station of Dublin

Procedure: students work in pairs. Each of them is given one of the following roles to play:

Role a: You are a passenger from Dublin and want to go to Belfast but you don’t know the times of the trains, the prices of tickets or how long the journey takes. Find out all this information from the station officer.

Role b: You are an officer at Dublin station. You have to answer all the questions …that the passenger asks you.

Step 1 - Each student uses one of the cards below and produces dialogues orally:

Role A – Passenger

Instructions:

find out about travelling to Belfast, asking for:

- time of train

- price both of a single ticket and a return ticket

- length of journey

Note down the information you get so you don’t forget.

Don’t forget to greet the clerk before asking and say goodbye before leaving!

Role B – Station Clerk

Instructions:

Answer the questions the passenger asks you

by finding the information in this chart.

Time Price Length

Belfast 07.15 € 35 3 ½ hrs

Step 2 - Students change cards and partners after the dialogue is complete and start another dialogue, so that each student plays both the roles and creates new pieces of language.

· Reading activity + comprehension and reworking exercises

Step a: Read the following passage very quickly and say what it is about: give it a new title

A Dubliner Talks Given title:______________

Interviewer: You were born in Dublin and now you are a student at Trinity College. But you’ve also lived in London and Belfast. Mary, do you think that Dublin has changed since Joyce lived here?

Mary: Yes, I think Dublin has changed a lot. It’s much more cosmopolitan. We have Asians, Spaniards, Arabs, Australians and Americans all living and working in the city. The city is less parochial.[1]

I: What do you do on a typical Saturday afternoon, Mary?

M: The best place to be on a Saturday is Grafton Street, watching the buskers[2]- there are some really amazing shows there.

I: And what do you do on a typical Sunday?

M: Usually on a Sunday I go for brunch[3] at the Wexford Inn. Often there’s a jazz session there and it’s free. Then if the weather’s fine I take a bus out along the pier[4] Dun Laoighaire.

I: Are there any disadvantages to living here?

M: Yes. Dublin is as expensive to live in as London and salaries are not so high. Good jobs are also hard to come by[5]. There is quite a lot of crime, mostly car thefts, pickpockets[6] and of course drugs.

I: What do you think of Dublin’s attitude to Northern Ireland?

M: I’ve met some Dubliners who have never set foot in Belfast because they are too afraid. Others travel to the North but regard it almost as a foreign country. Obviously, Belfast is more anglicised than Dublin. It is under the influence of the English mass media to a greater extend than Dublin.

I: Can you summarise your feelings for Dublin in a few sentences?

M: I love the mood of the city. I love the accessibility of Dublin. Everything is at your fingertips.[7]

(from The New Not Only Britain, 1997)

Help! A list of difficult words:

Step b: Now read it carefully, then do the following tasks:

1. Finding information

Find out what Mary says about

- Wexford Inn

- cost of living

- crime

- Northern Ireland

- Belfast

- her attitude to Dublin

2. Summary

Write a summary of Mary’s interview in the third person

3. pair-work: an Interview

Interview a classmate of yours about his/her town using similar questions

aim of the step a activity: Reading for gist (developing skimming strategies, without caring about word-by-word-understanding

aim of step b activities: Developing scanning strategies; promoting the creative reworking of a text; improving speaking skills; favouring interaction, sharing information, negotiating meaning; overcoming the information-gap.