Homes: London narrowboats

Objective & content

This Look Closer episode (Homes mini-series, episode 90) is a one-minute documentary about the narrowboats on London's canals, told with real photos and drawings. A single narrator explains what a canal is, what these boats carried long ago, why a narrowboat is only about two metres wide (it must go through the locks), how the rooms are in a line, and why many boat people move every two weeks. Learners meet the present simple to describe a home (is, live, takes, don't pay), must for a reason and a rule (it must go through the locks), one past simple (carried), Why? Because ..., and a closing Would you like to ...? question. The vocabulary is about homes, rooms, canals and boats (kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, lock, narrow, wide). Learners listen, then answer the 10 questions in the app: 7 on facts and 3 on vocabulary (canal, lock, narrow).

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 rooms of a house and the present simple with it and they. Narrowboat and canal name the subject, so they are taught for understanding; canal and lock are explained in the episode, and coal is only heard in passing.

Curriculum alignment

Tagged daily-life-living-playing-learning (6e, "Le quotidien : vivre, jouer, apprendre", study topic "The living spaces of students in English-speaking countries", Cycle 3). The episode targets CEFR level A1+.