British banknotes: Alan Turing

Objective & content

This Look Closer episode (the last episode of the mini-series British banknotes) is a short documentary about the fifty-pound note and the scientist on its back, Alan Turing. A single narrator explains how the Bank of England chose him from more than two hundred thousand ideas, then looks at what the note shows of his work: his 1936 idea of a machine that can do any calculation, a table from that paper and the Pilot ACE, one of the first computers. Learners then look closely at the strip of ones and zeros and find out what it hides. It is a comprehension episode: the narration uses the present simple, the past simple, there is and could, and no grammar point is taught. Learners listen, then answer the 10 questions in the app: 7 on facts and 3 on vocabulary (table, strip, computer code).

Materials & prerequisites

The folder holds the audio, the slideshow and the script. Each pack is a one-page PDF with the text, three pictures, 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 (Can a machine think? What do you think?) for a short class discussion. Learners should know the numbers, the words computer, machine and birthday, and be able to read years such as 1912 and dates such as the 23rd of June. The pack's key words explain the new words (pioneer, computer science, calculation, instructions, table, strip).

Curriculum alignment

Tagged portrait-self-portrait (5e, "Portrait, autoportrait", Cycle 4). The episode targets CEFR level A2-.