Ioannes Oculus, English With John Extra #2 ​ The Viking Invasion lesson plan Materials YouTube video by Anglophenia: ● https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FA37iv3Z_3g Source for group work: ● http://www.therichest.com/rich-list/most-influential/10-of-the-most-badass-vikings-of-all-ti me/ Web articles for homework: ● https://alehorn.com/2016/01/29/mythbusting-viking-culture/ ● http://www.historyextra.com/article/bbc-history-magazine/7-facts-battle-culloden ● http://www.therichest.com/rich-list/most-popular/15-popular-historical-myths-busted/ Lesson Objectives ● Students will be able to use past tenses forms in communication (speaking and writing). ● Students would be able to present information about past events using an assigned reading as their source of information. Warm-up and Objective Discussion [You can create environment that invites speaking by bringing some Viking posters, a toy axe, usually a child in your or your friend’s family has some Viking toys. Very creative teachers could borrow a Viking costume for themselves.] Do you know who is a Viking? Introduce students to the lesson’s topic. Ask students what do they know about Vikings and how they invaded Britain. Gather their ideas on a board or a big sheet of paper (possibly in a form of a mind map). This will be necessary later during the lesson, so it should not be erased if it would be written on board. If it was not mentioned by students themselves ask what they know or think about the Vikings’ hygiene, helmets with horns, fighting on horses, their women, their influence on modern English, do they still live today. Instruct and Model skills: ☐reading ☐ writing ☒ listening ☐ speaking Listening: Watch the video to 1:20. Ask the students to write as many historical facts as possible. Using these statements revise the past simple tense. Discuss the past tenses formation and review the rules if needed (students are on an advanced level, so they should know the rules already). For tenses’ revision use the handout (appendix 3): a paragraph with missing words. 1 English With John Extra Guided Practice skills: ☐reading ☐ writing ☒ listening ☒ speaking Listening: Watch/listen to the whole video. Ask students to check if the information which ​ they had at the beginning of the lesson about the Vikings was true. If it was not, they should write a correct sentence. Compare a myth with the truth as an example for students. You can describe that many people thing that they were very dirty, but in fact, they bathed once a week. Ask students to do the same (you can divide them into groups if the class is numerous). Independent Practice skills: ☐reading ☐ writing ☐ listening ☒ speaking Pronunciation: Prepare a list of words from Appendix 2 that students may find difficult to ​ pronounce or that are completely new to them. Say the word and asks students to build a sentence with it. If they do not know the meaning and/or pronunciation explain and give the correct pronunciation. Read also the sentences from Appendix 2 where the words are to give context for both meaning and pronunciation. Ask students to repeat the words and again build a sentence with the word. Example words for this exercise: ruthless, indestructible, allegedly, formidable Interactive Speaking: Divide the class into two groups. One group would be Vikings ​ (appendix 2), another would be historians. The historian group would get a list of myths that they should find if they are true or not. Let students walk around the class and talk to each other in order to gather the information. In pairs, groups or with the whole class the historians’ representatives can share their findings. Presentation: Students work in pairs (a Viking and a historian). Ask them to prepare simple ​ presentation of their Viking in a form of an interview. Students can use other sources, like Wikipedia, if they are available. If not, prepare Wikipedia printouts or books like encyclopaedias and bring them to class as an extra resource. Inform students that this activity will be assessed and inform them about the rubrics. Students should: 1. prepare questions they want to use in the interview and key notes for the answers (tell them not to write full sentences) [preparation] ​ 2. ask them first to role play the interview in pairs [practice] ​ 3. match each two pairs in a group; they should act the interview in front of the other pair and ask for feedback [feedback] ​ 4. give short time for pairs to improve their interview 2 English With John Extra Assessment skills: ☒reading ☐ writing ☐ listening ☐ speaking Assessment: Ask each pair to perform their dialog in front of the class. Give students points in ​ following categories: Grammar, Style, Creativity, Amount of facts about the Viking. For each category give 0-2 points (0 – very poor, basic mistakes, reading from the paper, no knowledge about the person; 1 – some mistakes, but without influence on understanding, one or two facts about the Viking; 2 – no or very little minor mistakes, many facts, using visuals if available or some physical action like movement, more than two facts about the Viking). You can also ask the rest of the class to assess their classmates using the same rubrics. You can allow some questions from the audience. Homework: students should to read the article (https://alehorn.com/2016/01/29/mythbusting-viking-culture/) and prepare a little oral ​ ​ presentation debunking one myth of their choice. They can also choose other myth about Vikings or of their choice (e.g. from students’ culture). You can suggest the following websites: http://www.historyextra.com/article/bbc-history-magazine/7-facts-battle-culloden http://www.therichest.com/rich-list/most-popular/15-popular-historical-myths-busted/ You can also print the articles and cut them so students can draw their myths. The can draw two and choose one. 3 English With John Extra Appendix 1: Video transcript disclaimer: This transcript is based on Google’s automatic voice recognition. It was checked and corrected, but occasional differences between the video and this transcript may occur. The Vikings are coming… to BBC America that is in an epic new series called The Last Kingdom which is about the struggle between the native Anglo-Saxons and the Viking invaders over who would rule England with plenty of stabbings, betrayals, surprising plot twist and even a bit of snogging. So, I thought we could score sup in preparation because as it turns out there was actually much more than bids and brutality when it came to the Vikings. The Viking Invasion The Viking invasions occurred between 800 and 1150 AD when over 200,000 people left Scandinavia which we now know if Denmark, Norway and Sweden to raid and settle in other lands and England was on the list. In 866 they captured the city of York and made it their capital at the time it looked like all of England would fall to the Vikings and then Alfred of Wessex came along who would later be known as Alfred the Great. He took to the throne at the age of 21 schooled himself in guerrilla warfare and beat the Vikings at their own game. He used hit and run tactics to not only attack their fortifications but also steal provisions. After Alfred gave the Vikings are good trouncing a treaty was signed with the Viking leader Guthrum spitting England between the Vikings and the English with the biking territory be known as the Danelaw. Savages The Vikings were like super into weapons such as swords, spears, axes, shields, knives and helmets which actually had no pointy horns by the way. They prefer to fight on foot only riding on horseback as a mode of transport to the battlefield. The Vikings were, to put it bluntly a savage bunch although rather inventive with it, for example, the captured King Edmund of East Anglia was used for archery practice and the Archbishop of Canterbury with pelted with ox bones until dead. In a ritual killing known as the Blood Eagle the victim's chest with cut open his rib site and lungs pulled out from the inside of his rib cage and them to his chest to look like the wings of an eagle. I think the message that were basically getting from this is ‘Don't mess with the North dudes, ok?’ Culture and society Between growing their beloved longboat decapitating enemies Viking men must have been a pretty smelly bunch, right? Well, guess again! Turns out Vikings were actually the original metrosexuals with tweezers, razors and combs being founded excavation sites. Well those beards aren’t gonna maintain themselves, are they? And Vikings like to bath at least once a week which was a heck of a lot more than other Europeans of their day. Also to conform to their culture’s beauty ideals brunette Vikings would use a strong soap with a highlight content which would bleach their hair and would apparently help keep head flies away. Win, win. 4 English With John Extra Viking women Viking women enjoyed more freedom than other women at the time. Although they could still be married at 12 and were expected to stay at home sometimes they were allowed to go to war and as long as they weren't thralls AKA slaves they could inherit property and request a divorce which at the age of twelve might sound like a rather appealing option. The Vikings’ influence today When known nowadays the speaking the Queen's English but look a little closer and you'll notice the Vikings played a big part in not only our ancestry but also on language.