Teaching and learning materials

The activity deals with the issue of countries around the world: their languages, greetings, e-mail adresses and time zones.
The activity is divided into eight sections:

1. The first section deals with the issue of countries around the world. First, the teacher shows snapshots of Earth from space. The pupils write down what impressed them most with regard to the presentation. Then, they discuss their answers in small groups.
2. The teacher then dispenses Worksheet 1 and 2, which are about finding information about different countries. The teacher shows a movie. The pupils have to write down the names of the countries they understand and then answer a number of questions. The class fills in Worksheet 2 with the names of the capitals and the languages spoken in those countries.
3. The pupils teach each other how to greet in the languages of the countries they previously found. They try to find similarities between the languages and categorise them with regard to those similarities. Finally, the groups present their findings to each other.
4. The fourth part is about e-mail addresses and countries. The pupils work in pairs and match the e-mail addresses to the right countries.
5. The topic of the fifth part is 'Experimenting with languages'. The pupils are asked to send multilingual e-cards to some of their partners. They can find the appropriate material on the Internet. They could also add a text by using an online translating machine.
6. The next part of the activity deals with the Strait of Gibraltar. On Worksheet 2, the pupils ought to assign languages to the countries. Afterwards, they are asked to write down as many countries as they can think of where the languages spoken around the Strait of Gibraltar (Arabic, English, Spanish) could be useful.
7. To the seventh part of the activity, named 'The black Sea and the Red Sea', belong four worksheets. The teacher provides dictionaries, Internet access, geography books, a world map and a globe. The pupils read a text about both seas. They are asked to guess the origin of the names and afterwards, to read a text to check their guesses. On Worksheet 2 they will read another text about the Black Sea. Beneath there is a list of the name in different languages (Greek, Bulgarian, Georgian, Romanian, Russian, Turkish and Ukrainian). The task is to find out which words mean “black” and which mean “sea” in the list. Similarly, Worksheet 3 is a text about the Red Sea with the name in different languages (Greek, Latin, Arabic and Hebrew). Finally, the learner have to find symbolisms linked to these colours in their L1 or other languages.
8. The last part of this activity is concerned with time zones. Worksheet 2 provides lists of how to say 'Good morning and 'Good evening' in different languages (English, French, Portuguese, Italian and Spanish). First, the pupils calculate the times in different country with London as point of reference. If the pupils know how to say 'Good morning' or 'Good night' in other languages, they are asked to share their knowledge. The greetings are supposed to be learned in as many different languages as possible. The whole class works together to create a poster of the world. The names should be written in different languages. The students write down all the foreign words that they learnt during the activity and pin them to the countries where they can be used. To finish off the project, the pupils can discuss their learning process.

Duration: 6x60