Meet the Highland cow

Objective & content

This Look Closer episode (Highlands mini-series, series episode 10) is a short documentary titled "Meet the Highland cow". A single narrator explains how the cow lives outside all year in the cold, wet and windy north of Scotland: its long, thick hair keeps it warm and dry, and cows on the islands have even more hair. The script also says what it eats (the rough grass on the hills), that its calves are born outside, and that it has long horns and is not always red (yellow, white or black). The language is present simple and can, with so and but to link ideas, and vocabulary for weather, body parts and colours. Learners listen, then answer the 10 questions in the app: 7 on facts and 3 on vocabulary (calf, horns, windy). The study topic is the Highlands in Scotland.

Materials & prerequisites

The folder holds the audio, the slideshow and the script. Each pack is a one-page PDF with the text, three photos, the key words and the 10 questions: a pupil pack, and a teacher pack with the answers highlighted. It also has a pupil sheet and a teacher sheet with the answer key. It has no lesson plan. Play the episode twice, hand out the pupil pack, then use the closing question (what colours can a Highland cow be?) for class discussion. Learners should know basic colours and simple present sentences; the pack explains the harder words (rough, thick, horn, calf).

Curriculum alignment

Tagged countries-and-landscapes (6e, "Pays et paysages", Cycle 3). The episode targets CEFR level A1+.