Theme: Scotland
Lexical area: Describing places
Instructions for language assistants in Italics
Introduction
This Essential UK lesson plan is part of four entitled Destination UK.
They look at the four countries that make up the United Kingdom. This
one gives learners an insight into life in Scotland.
Task 1 asks students to brainstorm what they know about Scotland and
draw a mind map of their ideas. Task 2 is a quiz and Task 3 takes a
look at one of Scotland’s languages – Gaelic. Task 4 is a reading task
about living in Scotland and Task 5 is based on one of the early
reality TV shows called Castaway that took place in the year 2000 on
the Scottish isle of Taransay. Task 6 looks at Scotland’s national
dish, the haggis, and asks students to write about a national dish from
their own country.
1. Scotland Brainstorm
Ask your students to listen carefully to you in order to guess what the
lesson is going to be about today. Give clues about Scotland until
somebody guesses correctly. Grade the task according to your students’
level of English and their knowledge of geography!
Then write SCOTLAND on the board and ask students to tell you whatever
they may know about the country. Ask students to write their ideas
around the word to make a mind-map.
Task 1 Scotland Brainstorm
What do you know about Scotland? Write your ideas here.
2. Scotland quiz
This is a quiz about Scotland to get your students interested in
learning more about the country. Put students into small groups or
teams if you want to make the quiz into a competition. For higher
levels you could read the quiz out to them instead of giving each group
a copy, to make a reading task into a more challenging listening
activity.
1 – c, 2 - b, 3 - a, 4 - c, 5 – a, 6 – c, 7 – b, 8 – c, 9 – b (Gaelic and Scots), 10 - a
Task 2 Scotland quiz
Test your knowledge of Scotland with this quiz.
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1) What’s the capital city of Scotland? |
3. Get to grips with Gaelic!
Don’t panic, this isn’t a task to teach your students Gaelic. It’s
simply to raise students’ awareness that English isn’t the only
language spoken in Britain. There are groups of people who are fighting
hard to keep minority languages such as Gaelic or Cornish alive. Here
students can look at a few words in Scottish Gaelic and then discuss
the questions below about minority languages.
Task 3 Get to grips with Gaelic!
Did you know that English isn’t the only language spoken in Scotland?
In addition to minority languages related to immigration, such as Urdu
and Cantonese, Scottish Gaelic is an indigenous language which
approximately 86,000 people who live in the north of Scotland and on
the Western Isles speak. The word for Scotland in Gaelic is Alba. Have
a look at the days of the week and the numbers one to ten and then
discuss the questions below.
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Days of the week |
Numbers one to ten |
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Diluain – Monday
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Aon – one
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Now discuss with your group:
- Do you think Scottish Gaelic would be easy to learn?
- Some people think that by the end of the century 90% of the world’s 6000 languages will be extinct and there will only be ten languages spoken in the world. Do you think this may happen?
- Do you think it’s important to keep minority languages alive? Why / why not?
- How can we try to keep minority languages alive?
- Do you think your native language will ever die?
- Do you think that the growth of ‘English as an international language’ is helping to kill other languages?
- Do you think the world of technology is helping to kill languages?
4. UK in Focus reading task: Living in Scotland
This is a reading task with a text from the British Council’s UK in
Focus website. Students should work in pairs to do the task. They
should read the text and then produce the questions to the answers that
are given. Answers:
Q1) How many inhabited islands are there in Scotland? A1) 130.
Q2) Which is the largest city in Scotland? A2) Glasgow.
Q3) Name two famous Scottish bands? A3) Travis and Franz Ferdinand
Q4) When did Scotland get its own parliament? A4) 1999
Q5) Which industry in Scotland is currently growing? A5) The computer games industry.
Task 4 UK in Focus reading task: Living in Scotland
Read about Scotland, then write the questions to these answers! Q = question, A = answer.
- Q1)
- A1) 130.
- Q2)
- A2) Glasgow.
- Q3)
- A3) Travis and Franz Ferdinand
- Q4)
- A4) 1999
- Q5)
- A5) The computer games industry.
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Living in Scotland |
Source: http://www.britishcouncil.org/ism-ukinfocus-regional-scotland.htm
5. Castaway
In the year 2000 the BBC conducted a ‘social experiment’ by putting 36
men, women and children on an extremely remote island of Scotland
called Taransay. They filmed the progress of the participants who lived
in complete isolation as a community for a year. You could compare it
to the reality shows that now invade the TV, such as Big Brother or
Survival. Have a look at the websites about the island and print some
pictures to show your students so they will see what the island looks
like.
Then tell them that there is going to be a new series of Castaway and
the BBC are looking for volunteers. First, ask students to think about
the advantages and disadvantages of taking part and living on a remote
Scottish island for a year.
Then tell students to discuss the questions in groups to decide who would be the best person to take part in the show.
Task 5 Castaway
Scotland has 790 islands. Most of these islands are very tiny, only 62
are more than 3 square miles! In the year 2000 the BBC made a TV
programme called Castaway. It was filmed on a remote Scottish island.
They put 36 men, women and children on the island and they had to work
together to survive. Discuss these questions in groups, then decide who
would be the best person to participate in the programme and complete
the sentence below.
- Do you like spending time outside?
- What sort of weather do you like?
- Do you like having a lot of people around you?
- What would you like about living on a remote island in Scotland?
- What or who would you miss if you lived on the island?
- What type of people would be good for the new Castaway programme?
We think .................... would be the best person to go on the new Castaway programme because .......
6. Haggis: Scotland’s national dish
This task looks at Scotland’s national dish, the haggis. People
from other parts of the UK find the ingredients a little strange, so
your students may be surprised by the recipe. Ask them to read the
ingredients – you may have to help with vocabulary – and then read the
method and the section about when it’s eaten. Use students’ reactions
to the dish to develop discussion about unusual things they have eaten
or their favourite food. Using the information about haggis as a guide,
students then write about one of their national dishes.
Task 6 Haggis: Scotland’s national dish
Scotland’s national dish is called ‘Haggis’. The ingredients include:
- Sheep’s heart
- Sheep’s liver
- Sheep’s lungs
- Sheep’s windpipe
- Beef suet
- Toasted oatmeal
- Herbs and spices.
Method:
The ingredients are mixed together and put inside a sheep’s stomach. The haggis is boiled before eating
When is it eaten?
Haggis is eaten on special occasions like Burn’s Night, a special
dinner to celebrate the life of Robert Burns, Scotland’s national poet,
which is held on January 25th. There is even a special poem called ‘To
a Haggis’ that is read when the national dish is brought to the table.
There are now many vegetarian versions of the dish so that everyone can
join in the party!
- Would you like to try haggis? Why / why not?
- What’s your country’s national dish?
- Now write a similar description of your national dish.
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Our national dish is called _________________. The ingredients include:
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Internet links
The UK in focus website:
http://www.britishcouncil.org/ism-ukinfocus-regional-scotland.htm
The official site of the Scottish tourist board:
http://www.visitscotland.com
Eat Scotland is all about Scottish food and drink:
http://eatscotland.visitscotland.com
This site has some facts and figures about Scotland:
http://www.geo.ed.ac.uk/home/scotland/scotland.html
This site has some information about Castaway:
http://www.offthetelly.co.uk/factual/castaway.htm
This site has more information about Taransay for Task 5:
http://www.visit-taransay.com
This is a BBC site to learn Gaelic online:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/alba/foghlam/learngaelic/index.shtml
By Jo Budden




