Exploring the English language in the world today - Lesson plans www.britishcouncil.org/englisheffect

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Exploring the
  English language
  in the world today

Lesson plans

www.britishcouncil.org/englisheffect
The English Effect
Introduction
Discover what the English language means to individuals across the
globe, how the words we use today have been shaped by other cultures
and languages, and how using and playing with language can be fun.

The following lesson plans are linked to The English Effect exhibition
based at the London offices of the British Council. The exhibition will
tour to other British Council centres around the world.

The ideas and activities can be used as starting points in individual
lessons or form part of larger cross curricular projects. They aim to
develop knowledge and understanding of English as a global language
alongside important skills and competencies, such as collaboration
and creativity and provide links with the Connecting Classrooms
themes of identity and belonging.
Around the world in 80 words!
Learning objectives
To increase vocabulary, stimulate an interest in the origin of English
words, their definitions and the countries where they originate.

Curriculum links
English, Geography

Introduction
Divide your class into small groups with copies of some of the words
from The English Effect exhibition and a map of the world. These can
be found in Appendices A and B.

Discussion points and activities
Activity 1
Encourage your pupils to discuss with their group what each word
means, which language and country they think the word originates from
and then to place the word on its country of origin on the map. Can they
give a reason for their decision? Reveal the correct answers and discuss
whether they were surprised about any of the individual words and how
many have been borrowed from other languages and countries. Why do
they think this is?

Having matched the word and country on the map, ask your pupils to
choose a specific word and give clues using geographical language for
the rest of the class to identify it. For example, ‘This word originates from
a country that is in the northern hemisphere, in the continent of Europe
and originally meant quince jelly.’

Answer: Marmalade, which came from Portugal

Activity 2
Give each group three words and their definitions, taken from the list
in Appendix C. Ask them to read the true meaning and then invent
or use dictionaries to produce two other fake but plausible sounding
definitions for each word. One person then reads out the word and
the three definitions. The other groups try to identify which is correct.
For example:
1. Cravat is a Spanish word which means an arched structure
   for climbing plants.
2. Cravat came into English in the 1700s from the Netherlands.
   It is a temporary camp without tents or other cover.
3. Cravat is a French word which has come to mean a kind of
   ornamental neck scarf.

Which is the true definition? Encourage the pupils to discuss the
alternatives before making their decision.
Follow up activities
Can your pupils find other words that English has borrowed from other
languages? Make a display showing their country of origin and tweet
them to #EnglishEffect. Ask your partner school if they know of any
words that come from their language or English words that they use
and add to your display.

Choose one word from The English Effect list each day to be your class
word of the day. How many different sentences can your pupils invent
using the word correctly? What is the most inventive or alliterative
sentence they can come up with?

Encourage your class to invent other games using the resources such as
snap type card games where they match words and definitions. Ask them
to give their game a catchy name and write instructions for others to be
able to play.

Resources
• Words/stickers – Appendix A
• Map of the world – Appendix B
• Words and definitions – Appendix C
• English dictionaries
• Certificates
Wow words and favourite phrases!
Learning objectives
To expand vocabulary, encourage creativity and interest in the English
language and raise awareness of words that are special to certain parts
of the UK.

Curriculum links
English, geography, art and design

Introduction
Danny Boyle, Director of the 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony recently
unveiled a neon artwork showing his favourite word, wonder. In an
interview he said this word makes him think of the phrase The Isles of
Wonder, from Shakespeare’s play The Tempest. This was the title of the
Opening Ceremony and reminds him that ‘Wonder should continue to
run through all our lives’.

On a television programme, actor and author Stephen Fry said his
favourite word is puffling, which is the word for a baby puffin.

Discussion points and activities
Ask your class to discuss their favourite English words with a partner,
then choose one of these and write it beautifully on a template of a leaf.
Decorate the leaf in a style of their choice and then use these leaves
to create a tree of your class favourite words. Photograph your tree
and compile an alphabet of your class or school’s favourite words and
swap them with your partner school.

Can your pupils think of words that are special to your region of your
country? In the north of England for example, people sometimes use the
word nesh to mean weak or delicate and dree for dreary or cheerless.
In her novel North and South, Elizabeth Gaskell writes a glossary of these
words at the back of the book. Can you make a glossary with definitions
of words that might be unique to your area of the country?

Other well-known English authors including Charles Dickens and Thomas
Hardy have used local words and dialect in their books.

When the Artful Dodger meets Oliver Twist he says ‘Hello my covey!
What’s the row!’ and in Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Tess is told ‘Bide here
a bit and the cart will soon come.’ What do your pupils think these words
mean? Can they find other examples of local words and dialect in books?
Discuss whether they think children should use local words and dialect
in schools when writing.
Follow up activities
Create pieces of artwork incorporating your favourite English words
using a variety of techniques and materials. You could draw or paint
on paper or fabric, use batik, or collage techniques or create an image
of a word in the style of pop artists such as Roy Lichtenstein.
Photograph your creations and share with your partner school.

The English language is changing all the time and the Oxford English
Dictionary adds new words that have entered the language four times
per year. Recent additions include Vulcan – the fictional alien race
from the Star Trek films and, ‘whip-smart’ from North America meaning
‘looking neat’. Make up a word that you think should be part of the
English language with a note about how to pronounce it and a definition.
Swap your invented words with your partner school.

Resources
• Leaf template
• Art materials
What does English mean to me?
Learning objectives
To investigate what English as a global language means to young people
today. To encourage pupils to share their learning with parents, carers
and the wider community.

Curriculum links
English, history, geography, ICT

Introduction
In response to the question ‘What does English mean to you?’ one
person replied ‘it means the world to me.’ Another said, ‘We can
understand each other and promote our relationships and friendships’.

Discussion points and activities
Show your pupils some of the clips of people discussing what English
means to me from the exhibition. What would be the response of your
pupils to this question? Record and film their replies and swap with your
partner school if you have one. You could also enter The English Effect
competition to win an iPad by uploading your film to YouTube and then
sending the link to englisheffect@britishcouncil.org.

Invite your pupils to interview parents, carers or grandparents, asking
what English means to them and carry out some of The English Effect
activities with others at home. Who achieved the most correct answers
– children or adults? Were their parents/carers surprised at how many
common words originated in other countries? Can they think of any
English words that they commonly used as children that are used less
frequently today?

Encourage staff, parents and visitors to the school to add their own
favourite words to the language tree. Perhaps you could also record
their favourite book or poem in the English language too.

Follow up activities
When communicating with each other, many young people use words
and phrases or text speak that is unfamiliar to older generations.
Ask your pupils to write a useful guide to common words and phrases
they use when talking with their friends for an older generation.

Resources
• Words/stickers – Appendix A
• Map of the world – Appendix B
• Words and definitions on Appendix C
• Certificates
• Clips of ‘What English mean to me’ at
  http://englisheffect.britishcouncil.org/changing-lives/
• List of words/stickers
Appendices
Appendix A
Sticker set with 20 words and images on them. Word definitions:
1. Barbecue Arawak (The Caribbean)
   Barbecue came into English from Spanish in the 1600s. It may come
   from Arawak (indigenous Caribbean language) barbacoa ‘wooden
   frame on posts’. In its early English use the word had a wider meaning
   such as ‘rack on which food is cooked over an open fire’ and hence
   a meal or gathering at which this occurs.

2. Budgerigar (Australia)
   This name for a type of small parrot, often shortened to budgie is
   perhaps one of the more surprising words to have entered English
   from Australian Aboriginal languages. Some other examples include
   other names of animals like kangaroo, koala, wombat, as well as
   boomerang and corroboree.

3. Candy Arabic (The Middle East)
   Candy came into English from French in the late Middle Ages, but it
   came into French from Arabic. The basic expression is sugar candy,
   ultimately from Arabic sukkar qandī ‘candied sugar’. The Arabic word
   is probably of Indian origin.

4. Cider Hebrew (The Middle East)
   Cider entered English in the Middle Ages from French cidre, and came
   into French from Latin, which took the word from Greek. It came into
   Greek through the Bible from Hebrew šēk _ār ‘strong drink’.

5. Clock Dutch (The Netherlands)
   The word clock came into English in the late 1300s from medieval
   Dutch. The Dutch word, and related words in many other European
   languages (German Glocke, French cloche), have the basic meaning
   ‘bell’, but English clock has always referred typically to a mechanism
   that rings a bell, and hence a timepiece.

6. Coach (Hungary)
   Coach entered English in the 1500s from French, but comes
   ultimately from Hungarian, probably from the name of Kocs, a place
   in Hungary on an important coaching route where such vehicles were
   apparently made. A sporting coach has the same origin, someone
   who trains or coaches people being compared to the driver of a
   horse-drawn coach.

7. Dollar (Germany)
   The word dollar originated from the German Taler. The word occurs
   in English from the mid-1500s referring to various different silver
   coins, including Spanish coins used in many of its colonies. Also used
   in British colonies in North America during the War of Independence,
   the dollar was adopted as the US currency in 1785.
8. Llama Quechua (The Andes, South America)
   The name of the llama, the characteristic pack animal of the Andes,
   unsurprisingly comes originally from Quechua, a language of the
   Andes. Llama first entered English in 1600 and came into English
   via Spanish, reflecting Spanish colonialism in South America.

9. Magazine Arabic (The Middle East)
   The idea behind the magazine that you read was originally that
   it was a ‘storehouse’ for articles. The word entered English from
   French in the 1500s, but originates in Arabic, in which mak
                                                             _zin means
   ‘storehouse’. This can be seen in modern French magasin meaning
   ‘shop’, as well as in modern English military uses of magazine.

10. Marmalade (Portugal)
   Originally meaning a type of quince jelly, marmalade is first found
   in English in the late 1400s. Although the word is now widespread
   in European languages, it may have entered English directly from
   Portuguese marmelada, as a result of trading links between the
   countries. The Portuguese word comes from marmelo ‘quince’.

11. Parka (Russia)
   Parka came into English from Russian in the 1620s, but it originated
   among the Nenets people of the Arctic regions of Russia, and
   originally referred to the type of jacket made from animal skins that
   they wore. In the 1890s it began to be found referring to hooded
   winter coat.

12. Robot (Czech Republic)
   The word robot comes from Czech, and first appeared in 1920 in
   Karel Čapek’s play Rossum’s Universal Robots. In this play it is the
   name of a type of mass-produced worker made from artificially
   synthesised material. It comes from the Czech word robota meaning
   ‘forced labour, drudgery’.

13. Shampoo Hindi (India)
   Shampoo entered English in the mid-1700s as a result of increasing
   British involvement in South Asia. Its probable origin is Hindi cām
                                                                     . po,
   meaning ‘press’. The original meaning in English was ‘to massage’.
   Over time the meaning became ‘to wash or scrub (the head or hair)’,
   and finally shampoo came to mean the substance for washing hair.

14. Shawl Urdu or Persian (Middle East/Asia)
   Shawl came from Urdu or Persian in the 1600s. It entered many other
   European languages when the item of clothing was imported widely.
   Like the names of other manufactured items, it is probably ultimately
   from the name of a place, Shāliāt, a town in India.

15. Ski (Norway)
   Ski entered English from modern Norwegian in the 1700s. In modern
   Norwegian, as in most of the other European languages in which the
   word appears, it is pronounced like English she, not with the ‘hard’
   /sk/ sound of the English word.
16. Sushi (Japan)
   The word sushi has been found in English from at least the late 1890s.
   For most of its first 100 years in English, sushi is found chiefly in
   references to Japan or to the occasional, very exotic Japanese
   restaurant outside Japan.

17. Tea (China)
   Tea is first found in English in the mid-1600s, shortly before the
   first aristocratic craze for tea drinking. Originating in Chinese, tea
   probably came into English via Dutch, and may have come into
   Dutch via Malay, reflecting the trading routes by which tea first
   came to Britain.

18. Tomato Nahuatl (Mexico)
   Tomato came into English in the 1600s, from Spanish. However,
   Spanish had itself borrowed the word in the 1530s, soon after the
   Spanish conquest of the Aztec empire. The word originates from
   Nahuatl (the language of the Aztecs), in which the word is tomatl,
   and may come from tomau ‘to grow’.

19. Vampire (Hungary)
   The origins of vampire lie in Eastern Europe, a region where Dracula,
   the most famous of all vampires, is said to have come from. The word
   is found in English in the early 1700s, and comes from Hungarian
   vampir, via French vampire.

20. Zombie (West Africa)
   Zombie has its origins in West African languages, although it came
   into English (in the early 1800s or earlier) via the religious beliefs
   of communities in the Caribbean, the southern US, and other parts
   of the Americas who had been brought from Africa as part of the
   slave trade.
Appendix B
Fold out world map enclosed.

Appendix C
 Avatar Sanskrit
 Avatar originated from Sanskrit, originally meaning ‘the descent of a Hindu god to Earth in bodily form’
 It is also used in Science Fiction.

 Dodo Portugal
 The name dodo comes from Portuguese, meaning ‘simpleton’, as the bird showed no fear of man when
 it was encountered by European sailors so it was easily killed and eaten.

 Cravat France
 Cravat came from the French word cravatt which meant the linen scarf that people wore round their necks.
 From this, cravat has come to mean a kind of ornamental neck scarf in English.

 Easel The Netherlands
 Easel was borrowed in the 1600s from the Dutch word esel meaning ass. This use of the word comes
 from the resemblance in shape and function, because of the way that an easel carries an artist’s canvas.

 Honcho Japan
 The word honcho meaning boss or leader was first found in American English in the late 1940s, and
 was borrowed from Japanese by US servicemen stationed in Japan after the Second World War.

 Gnu South Africa
 Gnu entered English in the late 1700s from two South African languages and is probably an imitation
 of this animal’s call.

 Clan Scotland
 This can be traced back to the 1400s in English and comes from a Scottish Gaelic word spoken
 by Irish settlers in parts of Scotland meaning ‘children’.

 Baroque Portugal
 Baroque entered English from French in the 1700s. The word came to mean ‘bizarre’ in general,
 and was adopted as the name of an artistic style which has bold ornamentation.
Admiral Arabic
 Admiral came into English in the Middle Ages from French and Latin, but originally came from Arabic.
 In early use it meant ‘military commander’ as well as specifically ‘commander of a fleet’.

 Samovar Russia
 This name for a type of heated urn used for making tea came into English from Russia. The word means
 ‘self-boiler’, as this device could heat water for many hours.

 Moose Eastern Abenaki
 English-speaking settlers in North America borrowed Moose from the language of native American people.
 It is a large North American elk.

 Bungalow Hindi or Bengali
 Bungalow is a one-storey house. It comes from a Hindi or Bengali word meaning ‘belonging to Bengal’.

Appendix D
Certificate to be photocopied and filled in by the teacher for each student to take home.
© British Council 2013 / C666
The British Council is the United Kingdom’s international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities.
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