UK Nations Geography Lesson

Paul D Carrington

PROCEDURE:

Few Japanese students understand or care about the basic differences between the ‘UK’, ‘Britain’, ‘England’, ‘Scotland’ and ‘Wales’. By the end of this lesson they probably still won’t care, but maybe they’ll no longer assume that the first three are synonymous, and perhaps they’ll have a skewered notion of what the latter two may be. This theme was originally taught as two separate lessons, the first as a Scottish lesson to coincide with Burns Night (Jan 25th), and the second as a Welsh lesson to coincide with St.David’s Day (March 1st), but they can be combined into one happy compound.

1. First pin up a big map of the British Isles and tell the kids that there are 4 nations in the UK. To simplify, I left out Northern Ireland, but this could be included. Identify the island of Britain (the big one), then wave the English, Scottish and Welsh flags around and ask them to guess where each nation is within it. You can conjecture for them by pointing at the French coast or the North Sea, but let them figure out the reality and applaud them when they do. Then point at Ireland and ask them what it is. ‘China’, ‘Canada’ or ‘Narnia’ are possible replies. (5-10min)

2. Next tell them a bit about Scotland: Edinburgh, food, animals, and lochs, etc. I had bagpipe music straining in the background during this, but modern bands may be more inspiring. Introduce some Scottish vocab (haggis, thistles, Nessie, the usual stereotypes) with flash cards. (5 min)

3. Now introduce in a similar way the fantastical country of Wales, along with its own clichés: Cardiff, castles, leeks, daffodils, and dragons. Throw some Welsh music (maybe not Tom Jones) into the mix to get them going. (5 min)

4. Practice the new vocab with whatever game you see fit. I combined the Telephone Game (Chinese Whispers) and Karuta by whispering the chosen word to the first kids in each row, who then repeat it to the student behind and so on to the last one who runs round to the front to slap the flash cards that are pinned to the board. (10 min)

5. Now stress the themes of each country by playing an individual game for each. I copped out a bit with Scotland by playing Typhoon but using Loch Ness Monster cards instead of typhoons and castles instead of houses. This would similarly work for the Welsh dragon, and the kids seem to love anything to do with monsters. Sample questions are ‘What is the national flower of Scotland?’, ‘What is the capital of…?’ etc. This is difficult for the younger grades, so I gave them a Nessie join-the-dots exercise instead. (10 min)

6. For Wales I taught them some basic Welsh greetings and expressions. These can be found on various websites, and it makes a change to English language activities. Once they’d learnt a handful of expressions, we played the Janken Dragon game in which students must find a partner, and greet each other (‘Hello’/‘How are you’/‘I’m fine’) in Welsh before jankening. The loser must follow the winner around conga-style until there’s one long dragon made up of all the kids. (10 min)

7. Finally, review by asking them to find each nation on the map again, then mix up the flashcards and flags and ask them to allocate each to the correct country. (5 min)

NOTES:

Unless your students can grasp British constitutional history, you’re not going to adequately explain exactly what the UK is, and you won’t get much beyond national stereotypes as you endeavour to do so. But hopefully they’ll no longer tell Scottish people that they’re English, or Welsh people that they don’t exist. The next challenge is to teach North Americans the same. Admittedly the functional value of vocabulary such as ‘thistle’ in every day English conversation may not be obvious, and the immediate urgency for 9 year old Japanese students to converse in a celtic tongue may be negligible, but it’ll be another small victory for cultural awareness.