SEARCHING ONLINE REFERENCE BOOKS

by Shiao-Chuan Kung
English Department
Wenzao Ursuline College of Languages
Kaohsiung, Taiwan

sckung@mail.wtuc.edu.tw

INTRODUCTION

Bartleby.com (www.bartleby.com) contains an online collection of the most commonly used reference books (thesauri, dictionaries, encyclopedias, books of phrases and quotations). The website is a great resource for both teachers and students. This lesson is a scavenger hunt type of activity that seeks to familiarize students with this repository of online reference texts, to practise Internet searching skills, and to demonstrate the efficiency of electronic searching.

Level: upper intermediate

Time: 2 hours

Materials: computers with a web browser and Internet access. Depending on the number of computers available and the size of the class, students can work individually or in teams of two or three.

Procedure

1. Introduce the lesson by asking the class to complete the following famous quotes:

- "That’s one small step for man, but…(one giant leap for mankind)"

- "To be, or not to be:…(that is the question)"

2. Ask the class to whom these words are attributed. (Neil Armstrong, Hamlet)

3. Ask the class for a synonym for "jealousy" (doubt, envy).

4. Ask the class how they would go about finding the script of Bill Clinton’s first presidential inaugural address and the answers to the above questions if they did not know them.

5. Have the students point their browsers to the Bartleby.com web site (http://www.bartleby.com).

6. Demonstrate searching for the answer to each of the above questions using the search engine at this website.

7. Point out the differences in the information that can be found in books of quotations, encyclopedias, dictionaries and thesauri.

8. Give the students a handout with questions to be answered by searching this site and ask them to come up with two questions themselves. Consider giving two or more versions of the assignment with different but comparable questions. Depending on the students’ computer skills and language ability, the teacher should adjust the number of questions.

Sample Assignment

• Which famous person in American history spoke about a "government of the people, by the people, for the people?" When did he use those words? What was the occasion? (Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 19, 1863, Speech at Gettysburg) Who else are these words attributed to? (Theodore Parker, The American Idea: Speech at N. E. Anti-Slavery Convention, Boston, May 29, 1850.)
• Who called jealousy "the green eyed monster?" In which of this writer’s work does the saying appear? (William Shakespeare, Othello. Act iii. Sc. 3)
• Where and when was the poet Lord Gordon Byron born? (1788) What was his daughter’s name? (Ada Augusta)
• Complete the phrase "Life… is a __________ (tale) told by a __________ (fool), full of sound and fury, signifying ____________ (nothing)."
• What is a "yahoo?" (a crude, brutish person) Where did the word first appear? (Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift)
• What is the last line of Robert Frost’s poem "The Road not Taken?" ("And that has made all the difference.")
• Who wrote the popular children’s book The Tale of Peter Rabbit? (Beatrix Potter) Who drew the pictures? (Beatrix Potter herself)
• Find a saying in English related to time waiting for no man. ("Time and tide wait for no man.")
• How do U.S. presidential inaugural speeches usually begin? What words do they have in common? ("Fellow citizens" or "My countrymen")
• Find the text of one of the 10 Commandments in the Bible. ("Thou shalt have none other gods before me…")
• Search the word "narcissus" in all the references. Who was he in Greek mythology? ("beautiful youth who refused all offers of love, including that of Echo. As punishment for his indifference he was made to fall in love with his own image in a mountain pool. Unable to possess the image, he pined away and was turned into a flower.") Who was he in ancient Rome? (Secretary of the Roman Emperor Claudius I.) How would a botanist define the word? ("Perennial plant with narrow, flat leaves and with lilylike flowers borne on separate, leafless stalks.") What is the flower associated with? (death)

Follow-up

The lesson can be followed up by the teacher compiling all the student-made questions into a homework assignment and asking the students to answer a selected number of them. If more than one version of the assignment was given, students can exchange information orally with classmates or groups who got a different set of questions.

THE ROYAL FAMILY

by Jolanta Czarniakowska-Filipek
secondary school English teacher,
Lublin, Poland
jfilipek@zamoy.2lo.lublin.pl

Level: intermediate and above

Time: 90 minutes (two lessons)

Aims: to learn basic facts about the Royal Family in the United Kingdom

to learn and practice vocabulary connected with royalty and monarchy

to practise searching for information on the Web

Technical requirements: one computer per student or a group of 2-3 students, with an Internet connection and a Web browser

Preparation:

1. Prepare a list of websites on the Royal Family.
2. Check the websites.
3. Prepare a crossword with some vocabulary connected with royalty and monarchy in Great Britain and give it to students as their homework before the lesson on the Royal Family.
4. Prepare a worksheet for the lesson and copy it for each student.

Procedure:

I. Pre-stage

1. Check the homework (crossword), explain any difficult words.

1. Her ... is a title of respect used when speaking about the Queen (7)
2. The king has no son so there is no ... to the throne (4)
3. The ... of the United Kingdom today is Elizabeth I (5)
4. An organisation consisting of the United Kingdom and most of the countries that used to be part of the British Empire (12)
5. ... is a son of a king or queen (6)
6. England has long been a ... The only interruption in its history was when the country was a republic between 1649 and 1660. (8)
7. The youngest son of the Queen (6)
8. The act of becoming the king/queen and the right to become one (Who is the first in order of ... to the throne?) (10)
9. A piece of jewellery put by a monarch on the head at important ceremonies (5)
10. Another name for a king or queen, or an adjective used when talking about completely independent country (9)
11. ... is the act of becoming a ruler of a country (9)

2. Elicit from the students what they have learnt about the Royal Family from the crossword and what else they know about them. Ask also to mention a few famous kings and queens of Great Britain. You may want to ask questions like:

• How long has Elizabeth II been the queen?
• How many children has she got?
• What's the name of her husband?
• Who's going to be the next queen/king of the United Kingdom?

II. While-stage

1. Divide the students into four groups and assign the tasks to them. Send the students to the site http://www.royal.gov.uk to find answers to the questions on their worksheets. Remind them to make some notes.

Group I:

Complete the following genealogical tree (include the titles).

• What is the difference between the titles prince, princess, duke, earl and why do the children of the Queen have different titles?
• What is the current order of succession to the throne?
• Decide which of these statements about succession to the British throne are correct? Justify your answers:
• Sons of the monarch have precedence over daughters.
• The son of the monarch's eldest son has precedence over the monarch's other sons.
• Any grandson of the monarch has precedence over a daughter of the monarch.

Group II:

• How long has Elizabeth II been the queen? When and where did her coronation take place?
• Who was the previous monarch?
• When did she marry Philip Mountbatten?
• What are her duties as monarch?

Group III:

• What are the duties of the Queen's children?
• What was Charles's education like?
• What are Charles's interests?
• Why is Diana, Charles's wife, still remembered in many places of the world?

Group IV:

• What are the royal residences of the Queen?
• What is the Royal Coat of Arms?
• Compare the role of monarchy in the past (Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, Victoria) and today.

2. When the students have finished ask them to present what they found out to the other groups.

 III. Post-stage

1. After all the answers are presented and noted down by everybody in the class, tell them that they are going to prepare a poster of the Royal Family to put on the classroom wall. Tell them they need to prepare the most important information in a word-processing program (they can cut and paste some paragraphs from the Web and they can change them into the form they want, they can also include photos).
2. All the four groups work on their part of the poster and then discuss and design the poster with the rest of the class. If the time is short, they can finish it as their homework.