Hello Everyone

In a week of election fever (that is if one can imagine us getting feverish about politics) here in the UK, I thought I would offer you an exercise which shows the backgrounds of two politicians who are busy campaigning for our votes. You may have heard that our present Prime Minister has been ridiculed once again for making a derogatory comment about a member of the public, while still wearing a microphone. The woman in question had been ‘speaking plainly’ ( this usually means angrily) about immigration and raising the question “Where are all these Eastern European immigrants coming from?” Perhaps our PM should have simply asnwered “Eastern Europe, Mrs X” and left it at that!

Elections are odd affairs. They excite the media (if not the voters) and all sorts of stories emerge in the press about the characters and backgrounds of the main protagonists. I wrote this activity when two men, David Davis and David Cameron were campagning to be the leader of the Conservative Party, a few years ago. I hope you have fun with it.

Classy Activity

Level: upper-intermediate / advanced

Preparation: none (though you might like to familiarise yourself with the list of vocabulary, below)

Aim: to draw attention to class system in the UK as well as the beliefs and practices that are adopted by its members.

Time: 45mins

In class

1)    Divide your board into three columns and label them: working class, middle class and upper class. (These are the basic divisions, but will serve our purpose)

2)    Ask your students to take a sheet of paper and divide it up in the same way.

3)    Dictate the following list of vocabulary, in any order you like. Ask the students to put each item into the column they feel it belongs ( you may need to explain some of the vocabulary) : inner cities, deprivation, nanny, prep school, struggle, Eton, grammar school, Oxford, private wealth, redbrick, riding to hounds, business, commerce, hunt balls, St James’ clubs, industry, the North, the Home Counties the Midlands, the aristocracy, privilege, stately homes,

4)    Ask students to compare their answers, first in pairs, then 4s, then 8s until the whole class is working together. At each stage, students must reach a consensus about where the words belong, so they need to be able to justify their choices.

5)    When everyone is ready ask ss to write the vocabulary in your columns on the board.

6)    Tell the students that these words represent the life experiences of two men, from two distinctly different social classes. Explain that the British class system is not so rigid as say the Indian caste system, but that it might be difficult for a person born into the working class to move comfortably into the upper classes and be easily accepted as a full member.

7)    Bearing this in mind, ask students to take two different coloured pens and see if they can trace the two men, their activities, experience and places of residence.

8)    Ask ss to compare their answers in pairs/small groups and in plenary, ask for ss’ rationales.

9)    Give ss the text ( taken from a letter addressed to the editor of the Sunday Telegraph 23/10/05, by Frederick Forsyth, a famous author). Ask them to compare their findings with the experiences outlined in the text.

10)  Ask them to comment on the lifestyles of the two men and tell them that they are both candidates for the leadership of a political party in the UK. Can they guess which one? Which candidate would they prefer and why? Students can do this in small groups and feed their answers back to the whole group for plenary discussion. Finally you can tell the class which candidate won and is now fighting the General Election in the UK today.

More next week

Bye for now

Text

“David Davis brings to the contest his knowledge of inner cities, deprivation, struggle, grammar school, redbrick, business, commerce, industry, the North, the Midlands, the working class, the middle class, the suburbs, the Army and the views of a practising Christian. And inside politics, 18 years’ slog, five important offices and a Privy Councillorship.

Mr Cameron brings his experiences: nanny, prep school, Eton, Oxford, riding to hounds, St James’ clubs, the aristocracy, privilege, stately homes, private wealth, hunt balls, and the Home Counties; plus 11 years attendance at party headquarters. And as an MP, four whole years, the shortest period of any leader-candidate in part history”

Frederick Forsyth, writing in the Sunday Telegraph on 23/10/05