Урок 'Queen Elizabeth II – The British Monarch. Royal Residences."

The Outline of the Lesson

Subject:      Queen Elizabeth II – The British Monarch. Royal Residences.

Objectives:  to define the role of the British Monarch- Queen Elizabeth II, to demonstrate

                   the knowledge gained, to review the facts learnt about Great Britain, to

                    describe some of the Royal Residences of the Queen, to practise expressing

                   own thoughts and ideas, to identify and note key information, to practise

                    speaking, reading, listening and writing  skills, to produce sentences based on

                   the video  and the word-combinations.

Audio-visual aids: pictures of castles in Great Britain, pupils’ presentations “Queen

                    Elizabeth II”, pieces of the text  “Buckingham Palace”, pictures to the text, a

                   video-record  “Windsor castle”, Quiz “How Well You Know the UK”.

The Procedure of the Lesson

Preliminaries:  Good morning! I hope you are all in high spirits today. So let’s smile and wish something nice and pleasant to one another. (E.g. I wish you all to have a whale of  time at school today) Thus the subject of our today’s lesson is “Queen Elizabeth II – The British Monarch. Royal Residences.”  We’ll  review facts learnt about Great Britain, get to know about the life and business of the British Monarch, read and speak about some of the royal residences.

Warming-up activities:

  But first let’s talk a little about Britain in general.

Carousel: Imagine you have a splendid opportunity to visit a part of Great Britain. Think what it would  be. Now make two circles, the inner and the outer one. Stand face to face. Move around telling your partner about it giving reasons and of course asking him or her what part of the country he or she  would like to see.( listen to my command “1 ,2, 3, move…”)

  Thank you very much, good job! You may take your seats.

  So what is Great Britain noted for? Take turns to express your point of view. (E.g. Britain is famous for its green hills and fertile lowlands. It is famous for its rain and the lush green of its countryside.)

   Well-done, thank you all.

Home task checking:

   And I’d say it is well-known for being a constitutional monarchy. So who is currently the head of the State? What role does she play in the political life of the country? What essential rights does she have?

  Nevertheless the Queen is an outstanding figure in the life of British people. So let’s listen to your presentations about the most interesting facts about Elizabeth II (pupils in groups present their work done at home).

• What did you like most of all?
• What were you impressed by?
• What new did you find out about the Queen?

(Pupils express their thoughts and ideas)

   Personally I enjoyed the time listening to your presentations, perfect job, thank you!

Presentation:  You know the Queen has three official residences - the best known, Buckingham Palace; the oldest, Windsor Castle; and the most romantic, Palace of Holyroodhouse. They serve as both family homes and as the setting for the business of Monarchy. Each has its own distinctive story that reflects good and bad times, triumph and tragedy and, of course, the lives of some of the most memorable kings and queens. But they all share certain features - incredible collections of treasures that reflect both the tastes of their occupants and the artistic development of the nation, and architecture that has evolved across the centuries to meet the needs of different ages, reflecting the story of Britain and its people like no other buildings.

   So I suggest that you work on the most famous residence of Britain-Buckingham Palace. You were to get acquainted with the information about it.

Reading activity: Rotation triads: 

• Now split into groups of three pupils.
• You are given a piece of text divided into parts about the royal residence of Buckingham palace. Take 3a few minutes to read it; you may take some notes to be ready to present the information you’ve read to a newly-formed group of pupils. So according to your numbers (1, 2, 3) change the groups and present the information you’ve read to the pupils in your new group.
• Which group will be the volunteers to present the result of the discussion? The rest participate adding the information which has not been mentioned.

  Listening activity: Well, I can see you’ve all coped well with the task so at present I’d like you to get acquainted with another royal residence by watching the video. After watching it you should be able to answer the following questions:

• WHAT IS THE NAME OF THE RESIDENCE?
• WHO BUILT THE CASTLE? WHEN WAS IT BUILT?
• WHAT ROYAL TREASURES CAN BE SEEN IN THE CASTLE?
• WHO IS IT HOME TO?
• WHAT HAPPENED TO THE CASTLE IN 1992?
• WHAT IS THE CASTLE TODAY?

5-sentence summary: Good and now unite into 2 groups, look at the word-combinations and work in group to make up 5 sentences about the royal residence at Windsor castle.

(official residence of.., destination of…,exposing the symbol of…,home to…, tastes and needs ,State Apartments,  treasures assembled by…the Order of the Garter, shields and armor,  a devastating fire, burnt-out shells, award-winning restoration project, tells the story of…, is enjoyed by….)

   Each pupil in a group presents a sentence in chain-fashion.

Quiz-time :   Finally, I’d like you to have some fun dealing with the quiz “HOW WELL YOU KNOW THE UK”. So there is a copy in front each of you. Choose the correct answer to (a, b, c) to the questions. Swap the papers with the partner and let’s check how well you know the UK. Each correct answer gets one point. Who has got all 12 done correctly? Perfectly done!

Assessment and evaluation:

   Our lesson is coming to the end and it’s time you made some conclusions. Look at the board, there are the beginnings of the sentences. Continue the sentences analyzing our today’s lesson.

Today I’ve found out …

Now I  can….

I would like to…

 As to your marks you’ve all worked hard today and deserve 11 points. Fruitful cooperation, thank you! The lesson is over! See you soon!

Hometask:  Find some interesting information about “Palace of Holyroodhouse” and prepare a project “Royal residences of the British monarchs”.