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Lesson plan Topic: Around the UK – Giant’s Causeway
Level: SfL E3 / SQA Access 3/ CEFR B1
Time: 75 minutes +/Aims
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To develop students’ awareness of the UK
To expand students’ knowledge of vocabulary in the context of tourism
To provide listening and reading practice in the context of tourism
To develop students’ ability to use relative pronouns ‘that’, ‘who’ and ‘which’ and other ways to link
sentences
Introduction
This lesson is about Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland. It provides students with opportunities to
describe places and combine clauses with conjunctions and relative pronouns. Students develop their
writing, reading and listening skills as well as their vocabulary and discussion skills.
N.B: the video discusses whiskey drinking so check that this will not cause offence.
Prepare to display:
http://esol.britishcouncil.org/around-uk/giants-causeway
In this humorous video, the Northern Irish comedian Jimeoin takes a quirky look at three places on
the Northern Ireland coast.
All the following resources can be found in the document called: Student worksheets
Resource A – 1 copy per group of 3-4
Resource B – 1 copy per student
Resource C – 1 copy per student
Resource D – 1 copy per student
Resource E – 1 copy per student
Procedure
Warmer (5 minutes)
• Display a map of Europe or the world and ask students if they can identify where Ireland is.
Where do they live in relation to Ireland? Discuss differences between Northern Ireland and
the Republic.
• Put students in small groups of 3 or 4 and hand out Resource A. Tell students to try to identify
these 3 locations. You may need to explain that a distillery is a place where strong alcoholic
drinks are produced.
Task 1 – Listening (15 minutes)
• Explain that students will now watch a video about the coast of Northern Ireland, and the three
places in Resource A.
• Play the video called ‘Giant’s Causeway’ which can be found in the ‘Instructions’ section here:
http://esol.britishcouncil.org/around-uk/giants-causeway
• If you have computer access for all students, tell them to now complete the online games that
go with the video. (Task 1 – Listening for gist, Task 2 – Listening for detail).
1 © British Council 2013 Lesson plan •
•
You could also do these activities as a class or ask students to complete them for homework.
Advise students that they need to register with the ESOL Nexus website in order to access the
full range of free activities: http://esol.britishcouncil.org
Note that if students are surprised that whiskey, not Guinness, is the drink featured, explain
that Guinness is made in Dublin in the Republic of Ireland. Also if anyone challenges the
spelling of whiskey, explain that it is Scottish or Scotch whisky but Irish whiskey.
Task 2 - Reading (5-10 minutes)
• Now ask students to read the transcript of the video commentary - Resource B.
• Check any difficult words as needed.
• Ask students to answer the 5 questions and check their answers in pairs before you elicit
group feedback.
Task 3 – Combine sentences with relative pronouns (15 minutes)
• Write the last sentence of the transcript on the board:
Legend has it that it was made by a giant called Finn McCool, who laid a path across the
sea to reach his lady love in Scotland.
• Discuss the use of ‘who’ in this sentence and explain that ‘who’ is not a question word here. It
replaces ‘he’ (the Giant).
• Explain that ‘who’, like ‘which’ and ‘that’ (relative pronouns) can be used to replace the
pronouns ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘it’ and ‘they’ to join two sentences into one. So ‘It was made by a Giant
called Finn McCool. He laid a path across the sea’ becomes ‘It was made by a giant called
Finn McCool, who laid a path across the sea’.
• We use ‘who’ for people and ‘which’ for places and things. We can also use ‘that’ for people,
places and things, although this is more informal.
• Give out Resource C, fact sheet on relative pronouns, if needed.
• As a group, encourage students to think of one or two sentences based on the video which
use relative pronouns and discuss why they are used. For example ‘Bushmills is a distillery
which makes Irish whiskey’ Or ‘There was a volcano which formed the columns’.
• Give out Resource D and ask students to work in pairs to combine the clauses using ‘who’,
‘which’ or ‘that’. Elicit group feedback.
Task 4 – Clause combination (20 minutes)
This is to develop writing compound and complex sentences using link words and relative pronouns.
• Elicit words that can help to connect two sentences; for example:
Bushmills is a distillery. They make whiskey there. (simple sentences)
Bushmills is a distillery and they make whiskey there. (compound sentence)
Bushmills is a distillery that makes whiskey. (complex sentence)
• Put students in pairs and give out Resource E
• Ask them to create a video script (without looking at the original) based on the phrases in
Resource E.
Differentiation:
For students who find this difficult, give Resource F which is a gap-fill version of the video script.
For more information and activities based on compound and complex sentences, follow this link:
http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/fr/english-grammar/clause-phrase-and-sentence/sentence-structure
Cooler (10-15 minutes)
• Check how students have combined clauses and correct errors.
• Play the Giants Causeway video again with the sound down.
• Ask selected students to read aloud their commentaries as they watch the video.
2 © British Council 2013 Lesson plan •
If students would like to record themselves speaking, encourage them to use an online voice
recording tool called Vocaroo http://vocaroo.com/. They can record and listen to themselves
as many times as they want and then email the recording to you to check.
Homework/Extension
Extension / Homework
• If students haven’t done so already, tell them to complete the online tasks that go with the
video they watched in class:
http://esol.britishcouncil.org/around-uk/giants-causeway
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Tell students they can access more activities from the ‘Around the UK’ section on the ESOL
Nexus website:
http://esol.britishcouncil.org/around-uk/
•
Ask students to find examples of compound or complex sentences with relative pronouns from
the videos and bring to the next class.
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Encourage students to register with the ESOL Nexus website to access the full range of
activities by clicking on the ‘Join now’ button and filling in their information:
http://esol.britishcouncil.org/
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For more advanced work on relative pronouns see:
http://esol.britishcouncil.org/build-your-grammar/relative-clauses-%E2%80%93-defining-relativeclauses
http://esol.britishcouncil.org/build-your-grammar/relative-clauses-non-defining-relative-clauses
3 © British Council 2013 Lesson plan Answer key
Resource A – pictures: Old Bushmills Distillery, Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge, Giant’s Causeway.
Resource B – commentary
1. Why is the rope bridge scary? Because it sways and wobbles and is 25m high.
2. Which does Jimeoin prefer, Scotch or Irish whiskey? He prefers Irish whiskey.
3. Why did the giant and his lady love break up with each other? She was much smaller than
him.
4. How many times can you see the word ‘who’ in the commentary? Twice.
5. Why is there no question mark after the sentence with ‘who’ in it? Because ‘who’ links the
parts of a sentence, it doesn’t make a question.
Resource C – no answers
Resource D – relative pronouns
Old Bushmills is a distillery that/which is the oldest in the world.
Carrick-a-Rede is a bridge that/which is very scary.
Giant’s Causeway has 37,000 columns that/which come from a volcano.
Finn McCool was a giant that/who made Giant’s Causeway.
Finn McCool had a lady love that/who came from Scotland.
Resource E – no set answers
Resource F
Before/when you cross any scary bridge you should pay a visit to Old Bushmills Distillery that/which
is the oldest licensed distillery in the world. You can discover the taste of Irish whiskey, which/that is
better than Scottish whisky. Then/next go on to the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge that/which is along
the road. This plank and rope bridge sways and wobbles when you cross the bridge.
Next/then go on to Giant’s Causeway. A volcanic eruption formed it 60 million years ago and it’s got
over 37,000 columns. Some people say that a giant called Finn McCool made the causeway. He
made a path across the sea because he wanted to reach his lady love in Scotland. But she was
much smaller than him so it never worked out.
4 © British Council 2013