Great Britain: a country to discover

Topic: Information about Great Britain and its culture. 

School: Bilingual Secondary School.

Subject: English as a Foreign Language.

Period: Beginning of the course.

Language: English.

Grouping: Students will work in small groups. ( 3-4 people)

Placing: In the ICT classroom and at home.

Level:  2nd year. Secondary Education.

Previous knowledge: Students are familiar with the English language, they are aware of European countries and capital cities, they can place Great Britain on a map but have never studied further information about this country.

Objectives: To develop ICT skills while learning basic culture about one of the countries where their second language is spoken. They should also develop their collaborative skills and adapt and accept group decisions. Finally, as the whole project has to be carried out in English, students will develop their language skills.

Syllabus: This essay will be included within a unit about English speaking countries in the English classroom. In this unit students will work on grammatical and vocabulary features such as comparisons, present simple and past simple in use, connectors and description.Students will also be learning about the history of English speaking countries in the Social Science classroom. 

Great Britain is an incredible country with many interesting things that we should all know about. Millions of people visit this country every year because there are beautiful places to explore. Shal we learn a bit about this country through internet and explore its way of life and culture?

To complete this Project you will have to work in groups of four or five student, searching for information about Great Britain and answering the questions that appear in the Process stage. 

In the Process stage you will also be provided with several on line links to do your research about the country but you can make use of any other webpage you may find.

Answer the following questions about Great Britain.  

1. What is the difference between Great Britain and United Kingdom?

2. What are the names of the four different parts that divide the country?

3. What is the capital city of Great Britain?

4. What form of goverment does Great Britain have?

5. What are the official languages in Great Britain?

6. What is England´s national sport? describe briefly what the sport is about.

7. What is the name of the queen of England? Where does she live? Give a brief description.

8. What is the most famous monument in London? Describe it briefly.

9. What are the capital cities of each of the parts of Great Britain?

10. How many English speaking countries are there around the world? What does "commonwealth" mean? Give some examples.

RESOURCES 

Take time to visit these web pages as you will find useful information to complete  the questions above.

•  Britain official web page.

https://www.visitbritain.com/gb/en

• Life and culture

http://projectbritain.com/

• Royal family official web page.

https://www.royal.uk/

• Commonwealth web page

http://thecommonwealth.org/member-countries

The teacher will assess your answers following this evaluation chart. 

Regular: Wrong information, poor collaborative work and bad presentation. (1 point)

Good: Correct but short information, good group work and good presentation. (2 points)

Excellent: Correct and specific information search, shared responsibilities in the group and a carefully prepared presentation. (3 points)

Good job! You have nearly finished your project. By now you should be able to talk about very simple features of Great Britain and its culture. All the information that you have been searching for, may be useful for you in the future if you ever decide to travel to this beautiful country. You may discover that you are interested in travelling and discovering  Great Britain as a result of doing this webquest.

In order to put all the information in order and interiorize all the interesting characteristics of Great Britain, you will have to think about any questions or information that, in your opinion, should be included in this webquest which is not currently here.

Then you may briefly write a few lines about your experience dong this webquest;

- Did you like it?

- Was it fun? Was it easy or difficult?

- Do you like collaborative work?

- Would you like to repeat the experience on any other topic?

- What things have you learned by completing this webquest?

The following webpages have been consulted to acquire general ideas and develop this webquest. The evaluation chart is based on the webquests by Roberto Recas García.

- http://platea.pntic.mec.es/~jferna5/recursos/4sesion/grupo1Pilar/WEBQUE…

- http://www.teach-nology.com/teachers/lesson_plans/computing/webquest1/A…

- http://eduteka.icesi.edu.co/articulos/WQ_cie0001

- http://zunal.com/teacherspage.php?w=336073 

- http://www.aula21.net/tallerwq/fundamentos/ejemplos.htm

The images within this webquest come from the following links.

- http://sp.depositphotos.com/8367129/stock-illustration-welcome-to-great-britain-concept.html

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Britain

- https://www.reference.com/geography/countries-make-up-great-britain-280bd5a7f19631a1

- http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/great-britain/images/24069193/title/love-london-fanart

- http://www.dhub.org/events/this-is-great-britain/

- http://sp.depositphotos.com/2482708/stock-illustration-great-britain-flag.html

- http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/view-image.php?image=3667&picture=british-flag