Heritage is Great

This lesson plan for teachers of older teenage and adult students level B1 is about British historical attractions. Students will take part in a jigsaw reading activity.

Introduction

This lesson explores some British historical attractions through a jigsaw reading activity that promotes group work. There is an active vocabulary exercise to engage learners and should time allow the extension activities will allow learners to engage their creativity around the topic.

Topic

Heritage

Age/ Level

Aged 13-17 and Adult (CEFR B1+)

Time

55-75 mins

Learning outcomes:

Practise language used to describe historic tourist attractions
Practise reading for detail
Identify key words in a text
Write a text using key words
Take part in a collaborative discussion
Use the learner training strategy of underlining new vocabulary

Materials

Lesson plan
Presentation (this can replace the worksheet)
Worksheet
Reading texts
Dictionaries

Warmer (10 mins)

Display slide 2. Elicit from learners the name of the person in the image.
Elicit what they know about Henry VIII. Encourage students to provide as much information as possible. If your students are unfamiliar with the history then teach them key events – there are some good resources in the useful links section.

Note: If you don’t have access to a projector print off the image on slide 2 to show learners.

Vocabulary (10 minutes)

Put learners into pairs. Allocate dictionaries.
Give out the worksheet and ask learners to put the words in the word cloud into the correct category in the table

Print free version

Display slide 2 and ask learners to copy the table into their notebooks.
Put learners into pairs
Display slide 3 and ask learners to put the words on the slide into the correct category in their table.

Answers
Place names: Britain, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Stratford, Windsor, Buckingham
People: Queen, Shakespeare, Elizabeth
New words: Learners’ own ideas

Ask students what they know about the people and places that they have added to the table. Elicit as much information as possible.

Scanning (10 minutes)

Give out the reading texts. Display slide 4 or ask learners to look at the word cloud on their worksheet.
Learners underline any words in their text that are also in the word cloud.

Note: Some texts are shorter which will aid differentiation.

Reading comprehension (10 minutes)

Ask learners to read the text carefully and to note down 10 key words that will help them remember the text.
Support with any new language.

Collaborative writing (15 minutes)

•    Remove the texts. Put learners into groups, so that all readers of text one are together, all readers of text two are together, etc.
•    Ask groups to share their key words and try to re-write their text together.
•    Once they’ve written their texts allow them to look at the original texts again to identify any information they missed.

Pair discussion (10 minutes) - Optional extension

Re-group learners, so they are with learners who read a different text (in pairs or small groups).
Ask them to only look at their key words but to tell their partner about their text.
Tell students that they have to choose one of the places mentioned in the texts to visit. They should come to agreement and give reasons for their choice.

Note: The previous task provides scaffolding for this task as the learners have discussed the reading, written it and read it again.

Whole class discussion (10 minutes) - Optional extension