Sunday December 26, 2005

Intermediate +

THE ARTICLE

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II gave her traditional speech to the world yesterday with a message of “tolerance and respect in a changing world.” This was the Queen’s 52nd speech and it is one of the only opportunities she has of speaking directly to the world without government advice. It has become enshrined as part of British and Commonwealth Christmas culture. Britons sit down in front of the TV to watch the speech, unable to move after eating too much Christmas lunch, and wait for the 3PM broadcast. It is actually recorded ten days before it is aired. She sent a special Christmas message to British troops serving overseas, saying, “It has been a very demanding year. I am proud of the way you have risen to the challenges with typical professionalism.” She also appealed for greater tolerance and understanding between Britain's many cultures and religions, “Religion and culture are much in the news these days, usually as sources of difference and conflict, rather than for bringing people together.” This was welcomed by Muslim leader, Iqbal Sacranie, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, who said, “It duly reflects British society and that of the Commonwealth in that it shows we are a multicultural society.” The queen’s overriding message was that everyone is our neighbour.

POSSIBLE WARM UPS / COOL DOWNS

1. CHAT:  Talk in pairs or groups about Queen Elizabeth II / Kings and Queens / speeches to the nation or world  /  multiculturalism  / neighbourliness / …
To make things more dynamic, try telling your students they only have one minute (or 2) on each chat topic before changing topics / partners. Change topic / partner frequently to energize the class.

2. SPEECH TO THE NATION BRAINSTORM: Ask students for ideas on what a nation’s leader should talk about in a 10-minute speech. Once ideas are on the board, students expand on them in pairs.

3. 2-MINUTE DEBATES: Students face each other in pairs and engage in the following (for-fun) 2-minute debates. Students A are assigned the first argument, students B the second. Rotate pairs to ensure a lively pace and noise level is kept:
The Queen should speak for more than 10 minutes a year to ‘her people’. vs. Ten minutes is a long time.
The Queen should do more for world peace. She has a very low profile in this. vs The Queen is very busy opening museums and attending flower shows.
The Queen (or any monarch) is a great role model for a nation. vs The Queen (or any monarch) is too out of touch to be a role model.
If the Queen is proud to be head of a multicultural nation, she should wear multicultural clothes. vs. But she’s the British Queen – She can’t wear a sari.
Monarchy should be abolished. vs. Such a terrible idea.
The Queen’s Speech should be replaced by Tony Blair’s speech. vs. No. It’s Christmas and politics should not be important.

PRE-READING IDEAS

1. WORD SEARCH: Students look in their dictionaries / computer to find collocates, other meanings, information, synonyms … of the words ‘queen’, and ‘speech’.

2. TRUE / FALSE: Students look at the headline and predict whether they believe the following statements are true or false:
(a)  Britain’s Queen Elizabeth I gave her traditional speech to the world yesterday.  T / F
(b)  She had a message of “tolerance and respect in a changing world.”  T / F
(c)  This was the Queen’s 52nd speech.  T / F
(d)  The Queen’s speech is written by government speechwriters.  T / F
(e)  British people eat too much for Christmas lunch.  T / F
(f)  The Queen’s speech is always aired at 3PM GMT. T / F
(g)  The Queen’s speech is always broadcast live.  T / F
(h)  The Queen expressed the importance of neighbourliness.  T / F

3. SYNONYM MATCH: Students match the following synonyms from the article:

(a)	Britain	challenging
(b)	traditional	embedded
(c)	tolerance	customary
(d)	enshrined	cosmopolitan
(e)	demanding	origins
(f)	typical	humanity
(g)	sources	friend
(h)	conflict	The United Kingdom
(i)	multicultural	bad blood
(j)	neighbour	characteristic

4. PHRASE MATCH: Students match the following phrases based on the article (sometimes more than one combination is possible):

(a)	… gave her traditional	directly to the world
(b)	tolerance and	too much
(c)	speak	together
(d)	a part of	society
(e)	eat	speech
(f)	a very demanding	to challenges
(g)	rise	message
(h)	bringing people	respect
(i)	multicultural	British culture
(j)	overriding	year

 

WHILE READING ACTIVITIES

1. GAP-FILL:  Put the missing words under each paragraph into the gaps.

The Queen’s speech

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II gave her __________ speech to the world yesterday with a message of “tolerance and respect in a __________ world.” This was the Queen’s 52nd speech and it is one of the only opportunities she has of speaking __________ to the world without government advice. It has become __________ as part of British and Commonwealth Christmas culture. Britons sit down in front of the TV to watch the speech, unable to moveafter eating too much Christmas lunch, and wait for the 3PM broadcast. It is actually recorded ten days before it is __________. She sent a special Christmas message to British troops serving overseas, saying, “It has been a very demanding year. I am __________ of the way you have risen to the challenges with typical professionalism.” She also appealed for greater __________ and understanding between Britain's many cultures and religions, “Religion and culture are much in the news these days, usually as sources of difference and conflict, rather than for bringing people together.” This was welcomed by Muslim leader, Iqbal Sacranie, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, who said, “It duly reflects British society and that of the Commonwealth in that it shows we are a multicultural society.” The queen’s __________ message was that everyone is our neighbour.

directly aired changing overriding tolerance traditional proud enshrined

2. TRUE/FALSE:  Students check their answers to the T/F exercise.

3. SYNONYMS:  Students check their answers to the synonyms exercise.

4. PHRASE MATCH: Students check their answers to the phrase match exercise.

5. QUESTIONS: Students make notes for questions they would like to ask the class about the article.

6. VOCABULARY:  Students circle any words they do not understand. In groups pool unknown words and use dictionaries to find the meanings.

POST READING IDEAS

1. GAP-FILL: Check the answers to the gap-fill exercise.

2. QUESTIONS:  Students ask the discussion questions they thought of above to their partner / group / class. Pool the questions for all students to share.

3. VOCABULARY: As a class, go over the vocabulary students circled above.

4. STUDENT-GENERATED SURVEY: Pairs/Groups write down 3 questions based on the article. Conduct their surveys alone. Report back to partners to compare answers. Report to other groups / the whole class.

5. ‘QUEEN/ SPEECH’: Students make questions based on their findings from pre-reading activity #1.

6. DISCUSSION:  Students ask each other the following questions:
(a)  What is/was your image of the British Queen?
(b)  Do you like her?
(c)  Who is your head of state? Do you like him / her?
(d)  What do you think of the Queen’s annual message to the nation?
(e)  Do you agree with the idea of a monarchy?
(f)  Do you think monarchs, as national leaders, should do more for world peace?
(g)  Should a head of state of a multicultural society wear the different clothes reflecting those cultures?
(h)  Do multicultural societies encourage tolerance and understanding?
(i)  Is your image of Britain one of tolerance and understanding?
(j)  Do you think Britain is a “good neighbour” in the world?
(k) Is your country a “good neighbour” in the world?

7. THE QUEEN’S SPEECH:  Below are excerpts from the Queen’s speech. Students comment in pairs and form conclusions on each regarding whether they see these things happening in the world around them:
- “every religion has something to say about tolerance and respecting others”
- “Everyone is our neighbour, no matter what race, creed or colour.”
- “The need to look after a fellow human being is far more important than any cultural or religious differences.”
- “Some people feel that their own beliefs are being threatened.”
- “diversity is indeed a strength and not a threat.”
- “peaceful and steady progress in our society of differing cultures and heritage can be threatened at any moment by the actions of extremists”
- “there is every reason to be hopeful about the future.”
- “tolerance and fair play remain strong British values”
- “we have so much to build on for the future”

HOMEWORK

1. VOCAB EXTENSION: Choose several of the words from the text. Use a dictionary or the Google search field to build up more associations / collocations of each word.

2. INTERNET: Search the Internet and find more information on the BBC. Share your findings with your class next lesson.

3. YOUR SPEECH: Write your own speech to your nation / the world, inclusive of the themes you believe are most important in these times.

4. LETTER TO QEII: Write a letter to Queen Elizabeth II telling her what you thought of her speech. (Good idea to visit the BBC site and read it first!).

ANSWERS

TRUE / FALSE:

(a)  Britain’s Queen Elizabeth I gave her traditional speech to the world yesterday.  F (Queen Elizabeth II did)
(b)  She had a message of “tolerance and respect in a changing world.”  T
(c)  This was the Queen’s 52nd speech.  T
(d)  The Queen’s speech is written by government speechwriters.  F
(e)  British people eat too much for Christmas lunch.  T
(f)  The Queen’s speech is always aired at 3PM GMT. T
(g)  The Queen’s speech is always broadcast live.  F
(h)  The Queen expressed the importance of neighbourli ness.  T

SYNONYM MATCH:

(a)	Britain	The United Kingdom
(b)	traditional	customary
(c)	tolerance	humanity
(d)	enshrined	embedded
(e)	demanding	challenging
(f)	typical	characteristic
(g)	sources	origins
(h)	conflict	bad blood
(i)	multicultural	cosmopolitan
(j)	neighbour	friend

PHRASE MATCH:

(a)	… gave her traditional	speech
(b)	tolerance and	respect
(c)	speak	directly to the world
(d)	a part of	British culture
(e)	eat	too much
(f)	a very demanding	year
(g)	rise	to challenges
(h)	bringing people	together
(i)	multicultural	society
(j)	overriding	message