Destination UK: Scotland | Teaching English | British Council

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.

1) What’s the capital city of Scotland?
a) Glasgow
b) Aberdeen
c) Edinburgh

2) When did Scotland unite with England, forming Great Britain?
a) 1507
b) 1707
c) 1907

3) What colour is the Scottish flag?
a) Blue with a white cross
b) White with a blue cross
c) Green with a white cross

4) What’s the name of the famous lake where a monster is said to live?
a) Loch Monstro
b) Loch Grass
c) Loch Ness

5) What’s the name of the traditional type of clothing, similar to a skirt, that Scottish men sometimes wear?
a) Kilt
b) Scot skirt
c) Skilt

6) What’s the national drink of Scotland?
a) Vodka
b) Gin
c) Whisky

7) What’s the name of perhaps the most famous musical wind instrument that is from Scotland?
a) Wind pipes
b) Bag pipes
c) Scottish sax

8) When did Scotland get its first Parliament after the union with England?
a) 1899
b) 1959
c) 1999

9) How many regional languages are spoken in Scotland?
a) 1
b) 2
c) 3

10) What’s the name of Scotland’s national poet?
a) Robert Burns
b) Robert Louis Stevenson
c) Walter Scot

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.

Days of the week

Numbers one to ten

Diluain – Monday
Dimàirt – Tuesday
Diciadain – Wednesday
Diardaoin – Thursday
Dihaoine – Friday
Disathairne – Saturday
Didòmhnaich – Sunday

Aon – one
Dhà – two
Trì – three
Ceithir – four
Còig – five
Sia – six
Seachd – seven
Ochd – eight
Naoi – nine
Deich - ten

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.

Living in Scotland

Where it is
Scotland is the UK’s most northern country and has around 790 islands off its coasts – 130 of which have people living on them. Scotland is well known for its stunning landscapes, beautiful beaches and lochs, which are fresh water lakes. There are over 600 square miles of lochs in Scotland including the most famous one, Loch Ness.

It has a population of just over five million people which is about 8.5 per cent of the whole UK population. Over 2 million of these live in Glasgow and Edinburgh, and almost half of Scotland's population live in the Central Belt, where both the largest city (Glasgow) and the capital city (Edinburgh) are located.

Festivals and music
Scotland also hosts one of the biggest arts festivals in the world. This is commonly known as the Edinburgh Festival but is actually made up of a number of different festivals which happen at different times of the year, though many do take place in August and September. Many people have heard of the Fringe Festival, but there are also the International Festival, the Film Festival, the Children’s Festival and the Edinburgh Mela which is an intercultural festival.

Musically it has recently produced bands Travis and Franz Ferdinand and other famous Scots include Ewan McGregor, Sean Connery and JK Rowling.

Political devolution
In July 1999 the Scottish Parliament was opened, the first for over 300 years as Scotland had been governed from London. Scottish Parliamentary responsibilities include health, education and local government.

Stereotypes
Stereotypical images of Scotland often focus on things like tartan, kilts, heather and haggis as well as the scenery. These are all still a part of the country but contemporary Scotland is building a name for itself in other areas, such as its thriving computer games industry.

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.

Our national dish is called _________________. The ingredients include:

Method:

When is it eaten?

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