

Destination UK - England – Lesson Plan - © BBC | British Council 2007
Destination UK - England
Aim:
· To develop all four communications skills
· To revise language of describing places.
This lesson gives students the opportunity to find out more about England. It is one of a collection
of four Destination UK lesson plans that look at the four countries that make up the UK. They will
have the chance to read about England and find out a little about its people, culture and icons.
Procedure
A Two Minute Trip to London
· This is a guided visualisation activity to introduce the topic of England. If you’ve never tried to
do this before you will have to get your students ready for the task – younger teenagers who
aren’t used to this type of activity tend to get a bit giggly the first time you do it but give it a go.
Tell them that for the next two minutes you want them to close their eyes and listen to you.
You want them to use their imaginations and try to picture what you describe in their minds
eye. Let them put their heads down on the tables if they want and try to get students calm and
relaxed before you start. When they’re ready, read this slowly in a quietish calm voice. (Adapt
the text according to the level of your students. This one should give you a basic idea.)
Example text:
“Close your eyes and imagine you are on an aeroplane. You look out of the window and see the
clouds. The plane is arriving at the airport and you feel a little bit nervous as you land. You get out
of the plane and follow the signs to get your suitcase. You get your suitcase and walk out of the
airport. You can’t believe that you are in London at last. You decide to catch a taxi to your hotel in
the centre of the city. What does the taxi look like? You arrive at your hotel and leave your bag in
your room. You look out of your bedroom window. What can you see? You look up at the sky,
what colour is it? What’s the weather like? You decide to go for a walk outside to start exploring
the city. There are lots of people on the street. What do they look like? What are they wearing?
You see buses on the street. What colour are they? What colour are the post boxes? You feel
hungry so you stop for something to eat. What do you eat? You decide to start your sightseeing of
the city. Where do you go?…..” (continue for as long as you think your students are concentrating
and involved.)
· When you have finished say to students, “OK. Open your eyes.” Then ask students to draw or
write about what they saw. When they have all put some of their images on paper, ask them
to explain some of the images. Use their pictures to lead on to the next activity or start talking
about England. Who’s been there? Who’d like to go there? Etc.
Tip:
If you have never used an activity like a ‘guided visualisation’ before, your students may
wonder why they are doing it. You could explain to your students that it is a challenging and
useful listening activity. If it doesn’t go well the first time, try it again with another topic at a
later stage in the course. Sometimes it might take several attempts for you and your students
to get used to new activity types.
English Icons
Check students understand what an icon is. Give some examples of some icons of their country
so they get the idea. There is currently a lot of talk in the British media about icons. This activity
asks students to think of some icons they consider to be particularly English. If your students
know little about the country use pictures and any visual aids to help you. Give some examples to
get the students on track – red phone boxes, double-decker buses, tea, fish and chips, roast beef
etc. Put students into small groups and give each group a copy of Worksheet A. When the
groups have finished, put groups together to compare their ideas.
Group: Number two.
Exposition topic: United Kingdom destination.
Subtopic: Cockney Rhyming Slang.
1.Red rose. 5. Dog and bone.
2. Kettle. 6. Baked Potato.
3. Barnet Fair. 7. Mince Pies.
4. Wind and kite. 8. Jumbo jet.
Complete the following statement by making use of the correct slang from the chart above.
A) _________________ is a sensible organ which it recieves the oxygen and takes it through whole body.
B) As the fifa world cup is coming up;________________ also increase for foretelling the champion team.
C) They are to _______________________ the opening match on Friday 11st.
D) I was talking to my friend Ashley and she told me as a leave-taking____________________
E) With the change of 3G technology, I decided to buy one__________________ because my old cellphone is not adaptable to it.
F) On internet there around thousands of _________________________
G) I have to use sunglass because I got something on my_____________________
H) Melissa has her _____________________ shaggy.
PLAN ANALYSIS:
Innovating activities in the educational process is much more than simply using technology in class in order to catch the students attention, it means motivating students to learn through activities which are not the traditional ones, besides it is very important to take into account more issues related to the language with the purpose of involving students not only in an grammatical aspect related to the language, but also in important aspects like culture.
The activities presented by our group were mainly focus on culture from English speaking countries , since commonly a second or foreign language is taught by implementing theory and grammar, but students do not learn how to have communication successfully given that they ignore culture, for this reason our presentation tried to show and represent different feathers related to UK like slangs, food, places and cities which can easily motivate students to improve their knowledge toward the new language.
And these kinds of activities help students to get involved in the target language`s culture, lifestyle, traditions and costumes which are really relevant on the teaching and learning process.
Because as every body knows human is curious by nature, for that reason we can start introducing these kinds of activities in order to get enrich students educationally and the process of language teaching and learning be easier and comfortable for students.

