Страноведческий материал по английскому языку по теме «The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland»
занимательные факты по английскому языку по теме

Муниципальное бюджетное общеобразовательное учреждение

«Начальная общеобразовательная школа №4» г.Мариинска

Страноведческий материал по английскому языку по теме

«The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland»

подготовила

учитель английского языка

Миронова В.Н.

г. Мариинск
2014

London Eye

Now I'd like to present you the pride of London. It's London Eye. Actually this is my favourite place in the city I've ever enjoyed and not only I think so.

One of the traditions seem to be broken in one of the the most conservative countries of the world Great Britain. For the first time, talking about the main sights of London, people of the city named not a Tower and Big Ben but a gigantic wheel London Eye.

This wheel was placed in London recently in March 2000 but it has already conquered enormous popularity among londoners and guests of the British capital. Here people of the city and foreign tourists love to spend time. Especially guests from Japan enjoy London Eye and it has the biggest popularity among them.

According to the information of international organization, London Eye is on the second place in the world on the popularity yielding only to Eiffel Tower in Paris and overtaking the famous Empire State Bilding in New York.

Would you like to travel?

If you are thinking of visiting the most fascinating places of London so why don't you buy a ticket for a colorful tour.

My name is Eugene - your guide on the most interesting city of Great Britain London for today.

Today we will make an unforgettable excursion on our comfortable sightseeing double-decker around London. Only the most beautiful places of the city have been chosen for our trip.

I have personally selected the best museums, galleries and places of the amusement to ensure that your stay will be memorable and matched them with attractions so gloriously diverse so as to appeal to the most inquisitive of minds.

British Museum

First of all we will go to the British Museum which is located on Great Russell street. The British Museum is the most impressive of all the London museums, a huge neo-classical building with an exterior consisting of a series of enormous and most magnificent pillars.

This museum exceeds even Luvr its wealth. You could spend days there just viewing the incredible array of Greek, Roman and Egyptian antiquities alone - including the famous Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon in Athens. Visitors may admire treasures of the British museum for free as before.

Tower Bridge

Oxford Street

Now we will set off to the street where you'll have a free time to walk and perhaps to go shopping. It is the Oxford Street. But before this listen to me in order to know the information about the street.

Oxford Street is a solid mile of shops and the main shopping street in the heart of the West End, as it contains most of the department stores catering for the middle of the market. You are likely to find everything you want in the street’s shops and department stores. Major stores include John Lewis, DH Evans and Marks and Spencer. Bookshops include Dillions and Books and top music shops are HMV and the new Virgin Megastore.

However the street’s most famous shop is Selfridges, a vast department store near Bond Street tube station.

Would you like to visit the biggest shop in Britain? It was built in 1909 by american Gordon Selfridge. The shop is so large that a printed floor plan is available near the entrance to help you navigate around. As well as the usual big store departments, Selfridges has a highly popular food hall.

Be attentive and watch out for mock auctions that are sometimes held in empty shops in Oxford Street. A small peace of advice for you: if the weather isn't fine you can go back to Oxford Street and quickly move from store to store and while away many happy hours out of the rain.

Covent Garden & Piazza

Now when you had a look at the one of the most interesting places now for a change lets go to Covent Garden & Piazza.

This was London's Wholesale Fruit and Vegetable market for many years. The market moved to Nine Elms some time ago and in 1980 Covent Garden was turned into a leisure area featuring novelty shops, restaurants, cafes and pubs. When you visit Covent Garden don't miss the opportunity of eating at Porters English Restaurant, which specialises in serving quality English food at reasonable prices.

While you are here, I advise you to visit the Cabaret Mechanical Theatre, a weird and wonderful place! If you are looking for an excellent home-made London pub grub, you cannot do better than visit Porters English Restaurant and porters bar in Henrietta Street, where you will find the sort of food that you expected to be offered in London pubs, but curiously ended up with lasagne instead!

A prominent feature of Covent Garden is the wonderful Inigo Jones designed St Paul's Church, known as the actor's church as it is in the heart of theatreland, and many great actors or actresses have their funerals or memorial services held there. Under the portico of the church you will also find many buskers and street entertainers, providing local colour and making Covent Garden great fun to just visit, or to go for lunch or dinner.

Natural History Museum

The next our stop will be at the Cromwell Road the Natural History Museum.
It is my visitor’s favourite museum among all the museums in London, with certainly the most dramatic entrance of any of them.

When you walk in you will find yourself face to face with the full size Diplodocus skeleton as if you entered the Life Galleries. Alongside this dinosaur’s 26-metre length, you will discover more exciting specimens from the Museum’s collections.

The Central Hall itself is a magnificent sight, with its intricately painted ceiling and terracotta animals and plants. Here you can visit our close relatives, the primates, and discover the differences and the similarities between us.

Discover how we are linked with all the living things in our world or you just can become a dinosaur detective and examine fossilised bones, teeth and eggs to find out about dinosaurs. Believe me it worth seeing twice!

Big Ben

The tower clock famous for its accuracy and for its massive bell (weighing more than 13 tons). It is housed in St. Stephen's Tower, at the northern end of the Houses of Parliament, in the London borough of Westminster. In coordination with the Royal Greenwich Observatory, the chimes of Big Ben have been broadcast as a feature of the BBC's daily time signal since 1924, with brief interruptions (owing to repairwork) in 1934 and 1956.

The clock was designed by Edmund Beckett Denison and built by E.J. Dent and, later, Frederick Dent. The name of the clock is said by some historians to stand for Sir Benjamin Hall, the commissioner of works. At the time of the clock and bell's installation in 1859, the name applied only to the bell, but it eventually came to indicate the clock itself.

In 1956 the clock mechanism was restored and repaired. The hands of the clock are 9 and 14 feet (2.7 and 4.3 metres) long, respectively, and the clock tower rises to 320 feet (98 metres). The bell was cast by George Mears of Whitechapel and pulled to the tower by a wagon team of 16 horses. Shortly after it was installed, it developed a crack and was kept out of service until its repair in 1862. St. Stephen's Tower once contained a prison cell where “rioters” were confined. The leader of the woman suffrage movement, Emmeline Pankhurst, was placed in the cell in 1902 after demonstrating nearby.

London

London is a wonderful place to be! It has great museums with priceless exhibits, old markets, clean green parks and the best shops and nightclubs in Europe. There is something for everyone. London is on the River Thames about 40 million from the sea. Now London has around 7 million people living in and around it. It is a financial and cultural centre but it is probably most famous for being the home of the British monarchy. You can see the Changing of the Guard everyday outside Buckingham Palace.

You can travel on the bus, train, the underground or taxi to get to different places in the centre and around the town. London has 3 main airports: Heathrow which is the biggest, Gatwick and Stansted.








Dr Johnson once said: "when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life."

Wales

Wales is a country of lakes and mountains. Its about the half the size of Switzerland, and it has a population of two and three quarter million. On the north of Wales is some of the most beautiful scenery in the British islands, the Snowdon mountain. Snowdon is Britain’s second highest mountain.

Wales is an not independent nation. In 1292, the English king, Edward, invaded Wales and built fourteen huge castles to control the Welsh people. His son, Edward, became the first prince of Wales, since then all the kings and queens of England have given their eldest sons the title, Prince of Wales. Prince Charles became the twenty-first Prince of Wales. Although the English have ruled Wales for many centuries, Wales still has its own flag, culture, and, above all, its own language. In the towns and villages of North Wales, many people speak English only as a second language. Their first language is Welsh. In Llanberis, a small town at the foot of Snowdon, eighty-six per cent people speak Welsh as their first language. At the local primary school children have nearly all their lessons in Welsh. The children should be bilingual by the time that they are eleven years old. It is not a problem for children to learn two languages at the same time. Children have insight into two cultures, so have all the folk tales of two languages. Children like Welsh because in Welsh you spell things just how you say them, in English there are more silent letters.

Welsh is one of the oldest languages in Europe. Its a Celtic language, like Breton in France, Gaelic in Ireland, or Gaelic in Scotland. Two and a half thousand years before these languages were spoken in many parts of Europe. They died out when the Romans invaded these areas, but some of them survived in the northwest corner of Europe. But over the last hundred years the number of Welsh-speaker has fallen very quickly. Now only twenty per cent of Welsh people speak Welsh. Here are some of the reasons for the decline.

In the nineteenth century people thought that Welsh an uncivilized language. If you wanted to be successful in life you had to learn English, the language of the British Empire. So in many schools children were forbidden to speak Welsh.

At the beginning of the twentieth century many English and Irish people moved to South Wales to work in the coalmines and steel works. They did not learn Welsh.

People, especially young people, moved away from the Welsh-speaking villages and farms of north and west Wales to look for work in the big towns and cities, so the Welsh-speaking communities became much smaller. In the 1960s and 1970s many English people bought holiday cottages in villages in Wales. Most of them did not learn Welsh. This also pushed up the price of houses so that local Welsh-speaking people cold not afford them.

English comes into every Welsh home trough the television, the radio, newspapers, books, etc. There are Welsh-language TV and radio stations, but far fever than English ones. And now there is cable and satellite TV, too-in English, of course!

The decline has now stopped, because a lot has been done. Road signs, bilingual documentation, and there is a Welsh language act. The future of Welsh is uncertain. The problem is that Welsh has to survive next door to English, and, as we all know, English is a very successful language.

The theme: “The sights of London”

Цели урока:

1. Обобщить лингвострановедческий материал по теме, углубить и расширить знания по теме.
2. Развивать умения и навыки практического владения языком по всем видам речевой деятельности: аудированию, говорению, чтению и письму.

Задачи урока:

1. Совершенствовать коммуникативную компетенцию учащихся, эмоциональную и эстетическую сторону в процессе обучения иностранному языку.
2. Учить применять Present Perfect и Past Simple.
3. Развивать логичность высказывания.
4. Развивать понимание речи на слух.

Ход урока

I. Приветствие.

II. Орг. момент.

III. Фонетическая зарядка (the proverbs).

IV. Речевая зарядка.

1. What is the capital of England?
2. What is the emblem of England?
3. How many people live in London?
4. When did the Great Fire begin?
5. What river does London stand on?
6. When did England become a great country?
7. How are people of England called?

V. What do you know about London?

VI. The next task is: “Spot the mistakes”. You’ll listen a text. You know many facts about this wonderful city. Now, try to spot the mistakes made in the facts about London and correct them. Be attentive.

VII. You know many sights of London. Do you want to tell us a few words about interesting sights of London?

VIII. Britain is also famous for its people and writers. Do you know famous people? The next task is “Guess who it was”. You should put the passages of the stories in the right order, read them aloud and tell me what British writers and famous people these stories are about.

IX. British people like to speak about the weather, because the weather is very changeable.   Let’s sing the song “The weather”

X. The next task is to do the “Britain Quiz”. This quiz has 10 questions. There are 3 answers to each question, but only one of them is correct. You should write the letter of the correct answer.

XI. In order to speak correctly you should know grammar tenses very well. We’ll do grammar exercises but before it, let’s remember the rhyme on Past simple and Present Perfect.

XII. The following task is – Listen and guess What sights is this?

XIV. Let’s dream a bit. Close your eyes and try to imagine that you are in London and see many interesting sights, try to remember the names of the sights. Now, opem your eyes and ask questions to each other about interesting sights of London. (P1 – P2; P2 – P3….)

XV. And one more task – complete the crosswords. Each team will be given one and the same crosswords, connected with Britain’s traditions and customs.

XVI. Our lesson came to the end. What we’ve done at our lesson? What did you like most?

XVII. I’m very pleased with your work today. I’ll give you only good and excellent marks. I’m not going to give you home work. Tank you. See you at the next lesson!

Test

1 .William the Conqueror become king of England in 1066.

2. My friend ___ already write the letter to London.

3. We to be read a book about the Great Fire now.

4. He often watch British football on TV.

5. We ___ go to the theatre next week.

The Britain Quiz

1. Which is the longest river in Britain?

   a) The Clyde; b) the Severn; c) the Thames

2. What place is the official home of the Queen?

   a) The Tower; b) Buckingham Palace; c) St. Paul's Cathedral

3. When was the Great Fire?

   a) 1605; 6) 1666; c) 1863

4. What holiday is celebrated in Britain on the 25th of December?

   a) ST. Valentine's Day; b) Mother's Day; c) Christmas

5. How many ports is London divided in to!

   a) Two parts; b) Four parts; c) Three parts

6. Who is the official head of the UK?

   a) The President; b) The Houses of Parliament; c) The Queen

7. The heart of London is:

   a) The City; b) the West End; c) West Minster

8. What is the political centre of London?

   a) The East End; b) the City; c) West Minster

9. What is the English men's favourite drink?

   a) Milk; b) tea; c) coffee

10. The British Prime Minister lives in:

   a) Downing Street; b) Oxford Street; c) White hall

Across:

1. The major spectator sport in Britain.

3. The national emblem of England.

5. The political centre of London.

6. The colour of taxis in London.

8. The Englishmen's favourite drink.

10. 100 pence equal one... .

Down:

2. Who built London?

4. Something that the English put into tea.

5. The most popular activity of English people.

7. The river on which London is situated.

9. The birds living in the Tower of London.