Accents and stereotypes in the UK
This lesson gives learners an overview of different regional accents in the UK and opens the door for discussion about stereotypes. I find it works well as an introduction to UK Geography, for those working in a CLIL context, and also provides plenty of opportunity for learners to communicate about an interesting topic in L2. It also leads naturally to a discussion on stereotypes and accent in the learners’ home context, which is very stimulating and always leads to some lively and animated conversations!
Introduce the idea that today's lesson will be on accents. Using the first page of the handout below, learners try to match the accent locations to be studied with their geographical position in the UK. They majority of students will not know all of these locations, and that's fine - it's just to get the ball rolling. When they're done, elicit their ideas and add them to slide 1 of the presentation, which you can find below.
Move to slide 2 and show learners the real locations for each accent. Give them some time to compare their ideas to the map of locations and go through any concerns or surprising information.
Move to slide 3 and give out page 2 of the handout below. Keep the handout folded over so that learners can only see the table, and not the secondary questions. Remind them not to unfold the paper! Go through the table, explaining that learners should give a value from 1-5 of how easy the accent is to understand and how 'intelligent' they think it sounds, as well as a simple yes or no about whether they would like to speak with this accent.
Play each video from the google slides. I have cued up the videos to begin at an appropriate place, but it's up to you how much of the video you want to play. I usually try for around a minute, to give enough time for learners to make judgements, but not so long that they get bored.
Learners then compare notes in pairs or small groups. The teacher should take this time to monitor, making notes for feedback on language and ideas.
Using your monitoring notes, board some examples of sentences that could be improved in some way. Depending on the level of you learners, this could be correcting errors, or it could be adding in extra detail or upgrading language and structure choices. Take this opportunity to feed in some topic-specific vocabulary if your learners are lacking it. It could be ways of describing accents or the impressions that accents give. I usually have learners work in pairs to improve the language and then come together in plenary to elicit and discuss ideas.
From slide 12, take ideas in plenary from the class on the accent they best think fits the stereotype given. You can find answers to these questions in the attached Teachers' notes.
Learners then unfold their handouts and, in groups, discuss the questions. Again, the teacher should monitor and make notes of good ideas to feed back to the class, use of language previously introduced in the previous feedback and input stage, and and other language errors you feel need to be addressed.
Using your notes, have one final feedback stage. Be careful to balance the areas for improvement and the positive things you heard. You want to end on a high!
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