Recent lessons have introduced items of clothing, furniture and being healthy so, as a way of introducing the students to new cultures, today we can look at life in Sweden – Välkommen
Board new words, then allow (or force) students to write them down and reuse throughout the lesson.
Sweden is home to many global companies including Spotify, H&M, IKEA, Volvo, and Skype was co-founded by a Swede. There are branches of H&M in HCM City, but Swedes need much warmer clothing:
The students, placed into two teams, can run to the board and write items of clothing, one team member, one word, then exchange the pen with another team-mate. They can also write other items, not shown in the picture. Bonus points for those who can give the most detailed descriptions e.g. she wears a lovely purple coat (at this level, the students just use present and past simple, no continuous verbs).
Next, what are these buildings and who works there ?
Moving onto IKEA. What items of furniture can the students identify ? Which would they like – they have to select what they would buy for their home. They may choose different colours:
The Swedes are famous for their healthy lifestyle. What makes people healthy ? Here, I encourage, or demand, sentences, not just single words shouted out. To make it more kinetic, I can select some students and give them an activity to mime, such as exercise, eating healthy food and getting enough sleep. The students can be asked what food is healthy ? This leads into the next and final section, Swedish food:
Swedish meatballs, potato & berry sauceSill (herring) and fresh vegetables Selection of different types of sill (herring) in different saucesCheese, Swedish caviar and crispbread (knäckebröd)Midsommar (Mid summer) smorgasbordSemla – as delicious as it looks … but is it healthy ?
After this cultural trip to north Europe, it’s time to get back to spelling tests, unit work and bookwork.
Hopefully, the students will have learnt something about a different culture, a country where English is not the mother tongue, but is widely spoken, and taught from an early age. In face, many Swedish singers even sing in English; here’s an example:
Thay Paul's Notes 