A British Christmas: The Trafalgar Square tree

Objective & content

This Look Closer episode (A British Christmas mini-series, episode 71) is a one-minute documentary about the Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square, told with real photos, old and new, and two drawings. A single narrator explains that the tree comes from Norway, sent every year by the city of Oslo to say thank you because Britain helped Norway in the Second World War, then follows it from the forest, where people choose it years before and look after it, to London by ship and by road, and then looks closer at its lights, which go straight down in the Norwegian way. Learners meet the present simple for a tradition (comes, sends, travels), its negative (doesn't come, don't go), the past simple (helped, came), This is and that's, as tall as (as tall as a building with six floors) and the questions Why? and where does London's Christmas tree come from?. The vocabulary is about countries, size, large numbers and transport. Learners listen, then answer the 10 questions in the app: 7 on facts and 3 on vocabulary (tall, straight down, thank you).

Materials & prerequisites

You need the episode (audio and slideshow) and the printables: a one-page pupil pack and teacher pack (the text, three pictures, the key words and the 10 questions, with the answers highlighted in the teacher pack), a pupil question sheet and a teacher answer key. There is no lesson plan. Learners should know the months and the present simple with it and they. Christmas tree and Norway spruce name the subject, so they are taught for understanding; tall is explained with a building, and straight down with from the top to the bottom.

Curriculum alignment

Tagged art-and-expression-of-feelings (6e, "Arts et expression des sentiments", study topic "The imagery of the holiday season", Cycle 3). The episode targets CEFR level A1+.