Remembrance Day

• European and International Orientation
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 1

Remembrance day

11-11-2018

Why is it so specal this year? 

Letters home

Letters

During the First World War, how long did letters normally take to get from London to the British soldiers in France?

1. 2 to 4 days
2. 2 to 4 weeks
3. 2 to 4 months
4. 2 to 4 years

In the middle of the War, how many letters did British soldiers read every week?

1. 11 thousand
2. 1 million
3. 11 million
4. 1 hundred

What did people at home never send to the soldiers in France?

1. bananas
2. warm socks
3. cans of fizzy drinks
4. books

How often did someone else check a soldier’s letter home?

1. Always
2. Sometimes
3. Never
4. It is not sure

When they wrote home, soldiers could not write about

1. religion
2. love
3. information useful to the enemy

When a soldier wrote home, he was not allowed to write

1. his name
2. his address
3. the date

When a soldier wrote home, he was not allowed to

1. worry or upset his family.
2. make jokes.
3. ask about the weather.

Life in the trenches

The photograph shows a German soldier cleaning his feet in a trench. His socks are hanging up to dry. During the First World War, soldiers dug trenches to live and sleep in.

Which adjectives do you think describe life in a trench?

quiet                dry                dirty safe                 noisy    comfortable      clean    crowded

                   uncomfortable dangerous                  empty

How easy would it be to write a letter in a trench?

Read the letter from a soldier called Tom to his brother Albert. Do you think that Tom’s life is hard?

Grammar

In his letter Tom uses two present tenses:

Present Simple to describe a routine, fact or feeling. 

We sleep very little at night.

Present Continuous to describe an activity happening now. Right now we’re having a rest.

Read the letter again and find two sentences using present simple and two using present continuous.

Write them in your note book: 

Present simple                                                     Present Continuous

Example: We wake up early every morning. 

   

Example: Are you working hard at school?

Task 4 – Missing words

To censor: to change or delete something

Here is another letter from Tom. 

Tom’s officer read it and decided that some words might upset Tom’s family, so he crossed them out. Work with a partner and decide where the missing verbs go.

Missing words: is crying, don’t protect, feel, are dying, miss, freezes

Censoring a letter

Now join with another pair to make a group of four. This time it is your turn to censor a letter, but you have to work as a group and you can only cross out five words. What will you choose? When you have all agreed, tell the rest of the class about your decision.

Tom

Class discussion

Was if fair to censor Albert's letter. How did it make you feel?

Imagine that you are a soldier in a trench

Write a letter home using the present simple and the present continuous to describe your everyday routine, feelings and experiences

Display your letter

Using the coloured card and glue, help make a display of your letters.

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Use the link on the next slide:

Learn more about the lives of the soldiers in the First World War.

Find out about the "Christmas Truce"

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Lesson from the British Council adapted by Susan Corrigan