English Variation From Country to Country Lesson

[KIKKI.K]

In northern Britain we say 'aye' for yes- it comes out automatically for me, which is good, because it sounds like hai.
In northern England we also say 'like' at the end of sentences for emphasis in sort of a des/deska way. (i.e. what are you doing like?)

Oh god, I just said that with a Yorkshire accent and laughed^^

Also, in England they use "well" like "very" for example "It were well good" or "It were well funny"

[Kel]

This is actually in the textbook I have for one of my oral communication classes at one of my senior high schools.

I'm teaching a lesson about it tomorrow. Some other ALTs have kindly let me film a short video (1 minute)with us all talking about the same topic (fizzy/soft drinks) and using the different words we use for it. I'm going to use this as a warm up and ask students to guess which country each speaker comes from. We'll then do a listening exercise about the differences between American and British English (my poor JTEs have to attempt an American accent).

I'm a bit worried that the last activity will be a bit tricky for them - they'll have to first describe an object on a card to their partner without using the Japanese or English word for it, then working as a pair, choose the correct British English and American English word for it. (e.g. picture of football ="a game you play with a ball and your feet"= "football" and "soccer"). Hopefully it'll be alright...

I really want to confuse my students with The Broons and Oor Wullie. I used to read that as a kid and get my Scottish granny to translate.

[Kel]

Just taught this five times today and thought I'd add some thoughts in case anyone is interested- was a lot of preparation and a lot of activities crammed into one lesson but definitely worth it!

The students liked the video although trying to guess the speaker's nationality was a bit beyond them!Worked well as a way of demonstrating accents and introducing the concept of different words for the same thing in the same language.

We made the last activity a bit easier by first playing a "guess what's in the box" game with both my JTE and I describing objects to get the students used to the "It's something you..." format of sentences. We also put the pictures that were on the cards on the board with magnets and the Japanese word in case the students got stuck. There were 12 cards in all and no pair finished in the set time, but they seemed to enjoy trying to describe things in English. First time I have seen every student trying their best. (Best/strangest overheard description of the day: for subway/tube: "It's something you can use for suicide..."?!)

Matching the British English and American English words was a little harder. They usually knew the American word and made some attempts at guessing the British ones but often mixed the two up (especially principal/head teacher for some reason...). We gave them an answer sheet at the end because there was no time to check answers as a class. The sheet also had some example descriptive sentences by each word.

Sorry for the essay, but thought this could be useful for people wanting to teach a lesson on this!

[AVN]

Just taught this five times today and thought I'd add some thoughts in case anyone is interested- was a lot of preparation and a lot of activities crammed into one lesson but definitely worth it!

The students liked the video although trying to guess the speaker's nationality was a bit beyond them!Worked well as a way of demonstrating accents and introducing the concept of different words for the same thing in the same language.

We made the last activity a bit easier by first playing a "guess what's in the box" game with both my JTE and I describing objects to get the students used to the "It's something you..." format of sentences. We also put the pictures that were on the cards on the board with magnets and the Japanese word in case the students got stuck. There were 12 cards in all and no pair finished in the set time, but they seemed to enjoy trying to describe things in English. First time I have seen every student trying their best. (Best/strangest overheard description of the day: for subway/tube: "It's something you can use for suicide..."?!)

Matching the British English and American English words was a little harder. They usually knew the American word and made some attempts at guessing the British ones but often mixed the two up (especially principal/head teacher for some reason...). We gave them an answer sheet at the end because there was no time to check answers as a class. The sheet also had some example descriptive sentences by each word.

Sorry for the essay, but thought this could be useful for people wanting to teach a lesson on this!

That sounds great!
For my lesson I gave them a brief and bad drawing filled explanation of why English is so different around the world. Then had them name as many English speaking countries as they could. I told them more and told them there were many many more they were shocked.
Then We played Dialect Jeopardy. They had a great time. It was more about opening their eyes than teaching it and I think it went over really well.

[Kel]

I like the idea of having them name as many English speaking countries as possible! You're right, it's impossible to teach ALL the differences, as there's so many words, so introducing the concept that other Englishes exist is a good thing in itself I think.

[qwerky]

Technically I should totally not be nosying on here because I'm not even a current JET... just applying, but the "aye" comment made me laugh so much!! I also saw another comment about saying "like" at the end of a sentence where it's particularly abundant in Yorkshire... so well spotted! I'm from Yorkshire myself but carry NON of that accent at all I'm glad to say.
As for "aye" haha aww that really made me laugh. I lived in Northern Ireland for 2 years, and that is basically *all* they say, it literally is just an expression to agree with someone, it can even be said while sighing and it's pronounced "I" or... "eye" or the "igh" in sigh! So now you know about aye!!