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Theme: Immigration, demography, ethnic minorities
Lexical area: Countries, religions
Cross curricular links: History, geography, citizenship, citizenship
Instructions for language assistants in italics
Classroom materials
Introduction
These materials are focused around the theme of the different ethnic minorities that make up the population of the UK. There are a range of reading and discussion tasks which enable students to reflect on their own culture and the minorities within it. This can be a sensitive subject as it deals also with race a to some extent religion so be sure to be sensitive to people's feelings and try not to promote your own opinions, but listen to those of your students.
You can introduce this theme in a variety of ways:
- Use your own family background to introduce the questionnaire
- Use collections of pictures/photos which reflect the diversity of the UK population and elicit from students: Where might these people’s families originate from? What are they wearing? Were they born in Britain? How long have they been in the UK?
- Focus on the word multicultural. Could they describe their own country as multicultural? What is a multicultural curriculum
1. Questionnaire
Use the questionnaire to preview vocabulary like: immigrant, immigration, racial group, settle in a country.Give the questionnaire to students to do in pairs. then monitor and see what vocabulary they are having problems with. If possible try to get stronger students to help the weaker ones with new words.
Task 1. Questionnaire
Ask your partner these questions.
- Where do your family originally come from?
- Have they always lived in your town?
- Where were your grandparents born?
- Did they ever move to another town or country? When? Why?
- Has anyone in your family ever emigrated? Where did they go? Why?
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2. Discussion
Do this in pairs or as a whole class activity. Give guidance by talking through the first 2 examples and use this to preview vocabulary for different types of religion and racial groups.
Task 2 Discussion
Discuss which of the following factors might decide a person’s ethnic group?
- religion
- sex
- skin colour
- language
- country of origin
- political opinions
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3. Read and find out
Make sure that the students understand the questions from this reading task, then hand out copies of the text. It may well help them if you give them time to compare their answers in pairs before you tell them what the answers are.
Task 3 Read and find out
- Where do black people in Britain originate from? The Caribbean, Africa
- Which country or countries do British Asians come from? Former colonies/Commonwealth India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and East Africa
- When was the main period of immigration into Britain? Post war 40s-60s
- What is the largest ethnic minority in the UK today? Indian
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A Multicultural Society The UK has welcomed newcomers for centuries. It is a mixture of diverse ethnic groups, each with their own distinct culture and sometimes their own language or religion. This month is Black History month, celebrating the contribution that Afro Caribbean people have made to British society. Many British Asians will be celebrating Ramadan soon. There are 1.5 million Muslims in Britain with over 6,000 mosques. Asian can be a misleading term as it refers to all those people with roots or family connections in the former British colonies of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Asian does not always mean that the person is of Indian descent. Not all Asians are Muslim. Some are Hindus and others are Sikhs. These 2 groups celebrate the festival of Diwalli on November 6th. The Irish have come to Britain for many years, looking for work. After World War Two Irish and other European workers were encouraged to take factory jobs. Britain couldn’t get enough workers to help rebuild the economy and to work in the new Health Service so employers also looked to former colonies and Commonwealth countries. India, countries in Africa and the Caribbean had been controlled by Britain in the past and had strong cultural links with Britain, including the language. Many arrived in the hope of building a new life for their young families. The descendants of these immigrants are now the teachers, the footballers, the TV presenters, the musicians and the politicians that shape British society. There are numerous ethnic newspapers, magazines, TV programmes, radio stations and internet sites for each community. The largest groups live in and around the capital London and many other groups are concentrated in the industrial centres in Yorkshire, The Midlands and the South East. Ethnic minorities timeline - 19th century: Jewish arrivals from Russia/Poland, escaping persecution;
- Irish people escape from poverty in rural Ireland
- 1948 –50s: Caribbean workers invited to help rebuild post war Britain
- 1950s-60s: Asians from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh escape poverty
- 1970s: East African Asians escape persecution and Vietnamese escape war
- 1980s: Eastern European refugees arrive from war and political unrest in Romania and the former Yugoslavia.
Ethnic groups in the UK(6.5% of the British population are from ethnic minorities) - White – 53,074,000 (includes Irish, Polish, Italian etc).
- Black Caribbean – 490,000
- Black African – 376,000
- Black other – 308,000
- Indian – 930,000
- Pakistani – 663,000
- Bangladeshi –268,000
- Chinese – 137,000
- Other Asian – 209,000 (includes Vietnamese, Malaysian, Thai)
- Other – 424,000 (people who did not think they fitted the above categories)
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4. Interpretation
It will help if you have a map of the world to point out the location of former colonies. Note that in 1900 a quarter of the surface of the maps was coloured red to represent British territories. You could give out these questions and get the students to work in pairs or small groups to do it as a competition. Set them a time limit, then award points for good / correct answers.
Task 4 Interpretation
- Name as many former British colonies as you can.
- Why are the colonies important in understanding the UK today?
- Did your country have any colonies? When? Where?
- What was the main reason for immigration to Britain after the war?
- Think of 2 other possible reasons for ethnic groups to change country.
- Where did most immigrants in the UK decide to live?
- What parts of your country might attract immigrants? Why?
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5. Your country
Prepare the next activity by using this for yourself and/or give examples of well known people from the UK like George Michael (a Greek Cypriot), Paul McCartney (of Irish origin). Question b could be prepared in small groups as a project to present in the next lesson.
Task 5 Your country
- Describe your own ethnic group. Why do you belong to this group? Is your group a minority group in your own country?
- Describe the different ethnic groups that make up your country.
- Do you know the numbers for each group?
- Which are the main minority groups?
- Where did they originate?
- When and why did they move to your country?
- How do they contribute to the life of your nation?
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6. Group discussion
You could get students to do this in pairs or small groups, but be sensitive to the fact that there may be recent immigrants in your class. If appropriate you can draw on their experience to encourage empathy: Were you afraid of moving to a new country? What surprised you at first? What helped you adapt to the new way of life?
Task 6 Group discussion
A group of immigrants or refugees will be arriving in your school soon.
- What aspects of school life might they need help with?
- How would you make them feel welcome?
- Describe 3 things you could do to help them get used to life in your country.
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Internet links
http://www.clickwalla.com This is the largest UK website for the Southeast Asian community.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/race There is an excellent collection of articles on British society here.
http://www.britkid.org/ This is a site on racial groups aimed at teenagers
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