Teacher Lesson Plan
Cultural diversity
Topic
Similarities and differences between the UK and your country overseas.
Age Group: Any
Time: 60 minutes
Aim:
Success Criteria:
To think about similarities and differences between the UK
and other cultures.
ALL
Will be able to reflect on what they like, and how
they are different to their friends.
MOST
Will be able to think about the differences and
similarities between them and people in the UK.
SOME
Will be able to make insightful contributions about
how life in their community compares to the UK.
Objectives:
Resources:
• To think about individual identity and how we are both similar and different to our friends.
• Board or wall space
• To explore the differences and similarities between the
UK and your overseas community by listing
characteristics on a Venn Diagram.
•Paper
•Pens/pencils
• Making a poster to summarise these differences
and similarities.
Activities:Timing:
Homework/additional ideas:
• Starter activity
10 minutes
Further activities could include:
• Main teaching
35 minutes
• Development (group or individuals)
• Plenary
• Listen to music: first UK then from your community
country. You could then play other types of music from
other parts of the world.
10 minutes
5 minutes
• Introduce a type of dance (Ceilidh?) from the UK,
and then one from your overseas community.
• Explain/Celebrate a traditional UK festival and/or festival
from your country.
• Draw a picture that you feel depicts your local or
national identity/ culture.
• Do a project with your class taking a series of photos
that depicts their daily routine. Then get someone from
home in the UK to do the same and swap pictures.
This video depicting the lives of one kid in England and one in
Bangladesh serves to highlight such similarities and differences...
http://www.cafod.org.uk/media/files/resources/primary/resource-pages/one-day-one-world-videos
© Project Trust MMXV | www.projecttrust.org.uk/global-citizenship/
2
starter activity
10 minutes
Sit the students in a large circle and ask a volunteer to stand in
the middle of the circle to get the game started. The following
rules are explained.
• The student standing in the middle asks classmates a question such as:
Does anyone
like bananas?
Does anyone have more
than three siblings?
was anyone
can anyone speak more born in another
than one language?
country?
• Any students answering yes must stand up and scramble to find
a seat in another opening of the circle.
• The person who asked the question must also grab a seat,
which leaves one person standing in the centre.
• The student left standing poses another question to classmates
and the cycle continues.
If the group are a suitably high level and you want to emphasize similarities
and differences you can have pre-prepared questions to ask the group.
eg I am a girl. I am from ___
Ask them afterwards if they can guess the themes of your questions.
© Project Trust MMXV | www.projecttrust.org.uk/global-citizenship/
3
Main Teaching Part One
15 minutes
Draw a Venn diagram on the board and using this example
provided below to explain what a Venn diagram is.
Me
born in
England
we
live in
china
yoU
born in
china
Now have the group work in pairs and do a Venn diagram of the
two of them. If they are finding the concept difficult, you could limit the
questions to ‘I like’. eg I like football, you like dancing, we like music.
Get pairs to feedback about them and their partner. Are there any themes?
(eg boys like football/half the group speak a local dialect)
© Project Trust MMXV | www.projecttrust.org.uk/global-citizenship/
4
Main Teaching Part Two
20 minutes
Now make another Venn diagram on the board labelling:
1) The UK, 2) Their country, and 3) The UK and their country.
Use the example provided below to explain.
UK
eat a lot
of potatoes
UK
& China
eat a
lot of
meat
CHINA
eat a lot
of rice
Work with the group to find out what similarities and differences you have,
you could get each person to ask you one question about the UK.
You may find that your group find it easier to point out differences, so make
a concerted effort to point out similarities. If the participants are older and
more suitable, you can include more serious issues.
Examples of similarities could be:
We all go to school
We all have a family of some sort
We all like days off
© Project Trust MMXV | www.projecttrust.org.uk/global-citizenship/
5
development (Group or Individuals)
10 minutes
Now create a big Venn Diagram on the floor of your room
(or outside). Read out answers from the Venn diagram on the
board (You could also have participants call out answers).
Have everyone initially stand outside the Venn Diagram and then run to the
right part of the Venn Diagram according to what piece of information you
call out. If appropriate you could have some people pretend to be British to
mix up the group.
plenary
5 minutes
Get one big poster and split it into two. On one side have half the
participants write a similarity between their country and the UK.
On the other side get the other half to write a difference between
the UK and their country.
© Project Trust MMXV | www.projecttrust.org.uk/global-citizenship/