THE CLIMATE AND WEATHER IN THE UK

Objectives:

-             to inform pupils about the climate and weather in Britain;

-            to learn more lexical units, to review known ones;

-             to develop memory, imagination and logical think­ing;

-             to teach students to work individually with personal tasks;

-            to exercise all kinds of language skills;

Equipment: the maps of the UK, pencils, felt pens and pieces of paper, the letter, cards, thematic pictures "Seasons and weather".

PROCEDURE

I.             WARMING-UP

T: Fill in the missing words and read a tongue twister as fast and perfect as you can.

Whether the weather is fine, or whether the ... is not, ... the weather is cold, or whether the weather is ... Whether... weather, whatever the ..., whether we like ... or not.

Key:

Whether the weather is fine, or whether the weather is not,

Whether the weather is cold, or whether the weather is hot

Whether the weather, whatever the weather, whether we like it or not.

(The exercise not only prepares tongues for English, but also develops logical thinking.)

II.MAIN PART

1. SPEAKING   T: Speaking about changeable weather, the first thing that comes

 to my mind is Britain, which is famous all over the world for its weather. You have already known  that the UK is an island state and that means it is surrounded by water. Look at the words  and choose those that may characterise the British weather.

Changeable, nice, sunny, wet, rainy, cold, gloomy, damp, wonderful, snowy, windy, foggy, frosty, unpleasant, sunless, cloudy, warm, humid.( додаток 3)

(We review lexical material and introduce new units. Stu­dents compose short sentences like: The weather in Britain is usually..., I think it is... and so on.)

2.             READING

While reading

T: And now let's see if you were right. Read a short text about the climate written on the blackboard and the weather in Britain. First pay attention to the note!

32° C — thirty two degrees above zero

10°C — ten degrees below zero ( додаток 2)

After reading

T: Well, these six sentences are rather informative. Look at them for a minute and try to remember the in­formation. Then I shall erase some words and you'll try to read the text filling them in.

(The teacher deletes the words that are easy to restore — one or two in each sentence. The pupils read sentence by sentence. Then it is possible to clean more words in order to make students remember the text.)

3.             ROLE GAME "WEATHER FORECAST"

T: Great! Now let's play 'Weather Forecast' game. One of you will be a tourist who wants to visit London tomor­row. He needs the weather forecast because he doesn't know what clothes or things to take. Two other volunteers are his friends who have just heard the weather forecast. They will tell our tourist about it. And the rest of the group will be a team of the workers of the Met Office. They prepare weather forecast.

(A tourist leaves the class for a minute; his two friends listen to the forecast. Then he comes in andfriends retell the forecast for him. The tourist tells the class what clothes he decided to take. Everybody is involved and interested. The activity develops speaking and listening.)

And to make the task easier I have prepared the pat­terns for you. They are on the cards. Just read the first part of the sentence and add the second. The first is the student with the card number 1, then 2, and so on.

1.             Tomorrow the weather in London will be ....

2.              The temperature will be ....

3.              In the morning we expect....

4.              But in the afternoon....

5.             The evening promises to be ....

6.              Have a nice ....

(Then comes the tourist and his friends try to tell him as much detailed forecast as possible and he speaks about the things he is going to take.)

          4.LISTENING

Before listening

T: I strongly advise taking a mackintosh with you.

Do you know what a mackintosh is? Of course, you do. It's a raincoat. But do you know that the word 'Mack­intosh' is a surname? Listen to the story.( додаток 3)

After listening

T: So, what does the word mean?

SI: ....

T: Was Mackintosh a surname of a Scot or English?

S2:....

T: Why did he decide to rubberise his coat?

S3:....

4.              RELAXATION PAUSE

T: Good job! It's time to relax. There are pencils, felt pens and pieces of paper on your desks. Please, forget that you have a lesson, close your eyes and think about the wind — sometimes gentle, warm, pleasant and sometimes strong or even dangerous. Have you imagined it? And now I'd like you to draw it. Yes, draw. It will be interesting to see your pictures. And while you do it, listen to the poem:

POEM

Who has seen the wind?

Neither you, nor I

But when the leaves hang trembling,

The wind is passing by...

Who has seen the wind?

Neither I, nor you

But when the trees bow down their heads,

The wind is passing through.

T: Well, show your pictures and comment on them in a couple of words.

5.            ROLEPLAY

T: In order to make it fun, let's play roles.

While one student is at the map, the other volunteer plays a role of a teacher. The teacher listens to very atten­tively and notes down all faults made by the student.

OK, who's going to tell us about the geographical loca­tion of Great Britain? Who wants to be a teacher?

6.            WRITING

T: You know rather much about Britain for now. Of course this is only the beginning of your acquaintance, but a 'good beginning makes a good ending'. The last activity for today's lesson will be the following. Write a short an­swer to my friend, Nina, and tell her that she is a bit wrong. Write her about the UK and its weather. Begin with:

Dear Nina,

My name is ... . Our teacher told us that you would study in England. How lucky you are! I am going to write you about this country.

Start writing here and continue at home. And tomor­row we shall send your letters to Nina. She will be happy to learn more about Great Britain.

V. SUMMING UP

T: Thank you for your active work in the lesson! The marks are.... And one more thing. Bring dark blue, white and red cardboard and glue tomorrow, please. I have a surprise for you.

IV. HOME WORK

T: Now you know not only about the geography of the UK but also about its climate and weather. By the way, yesterday I got the letter from one of my friends, Nina. She writes that her parents want to send her to Oxford to study English. And she writes:

I don't want to go to England. It is washed by the Pacific Ocean. Right? And the Rocky Mountains do not protect from the winds from the ocean. I don't like windy days....

And so on. Well, my friend is not an expert in British geography, as you see. But you are! Your home task is to speak about it using the map.

Додаток 1

Complete the words with missed letters to built  the Castle of Weather Forecast

                               

w..th.r	cl.m.t.			pl..s.nt
d.mp		d.ll			f.gg.
.ns.ttl.d	r..n			.b.nd.nt
dr.zzl.			t.mp.r.t.r.		d.gr..
z.r.	ch.ng..bl.			.mbr.ll.
th.nd.r		r..nb.w			f.r.c.st
fr.st	cl..d			n.st.
s.v.r.		w.t			m.ld

Додаток 2

TEXT

Due to the geographic location of Great Britain the type of the climate there is oceanic. It is generally mild and damp. Average British temperatures do not rise above 32°C in summer and do not fall below — 10°C in win­ter.

The two worst months in Britain are January and February. They are cold, wet and unpleasant. Summer months are rather cold and there can be a lot of rainy days. British fogs and changeable weather have worldwide reputation.

Додаток 3

In 1823, in Scotland lived a man whose name was Charles Mackintosh. It often rained in Great Britain, and Charles Mackintosh got wet quite often. One day he rubberised his coat and it became water­proof. Many of his friends liked his coat and asked him to rubberise their coats too. Soon many people began to rubberise their coats and they called those coats 'mack­intoshes'.