Into the ice: Matthew Henson

Objective & content

This Look Closer episode (Into the ice mini-series, episode 58) is a short documentary about Matthew Henson. In April 1909, six men crossed the frozen sea near the North Pole: four Inuit men, Ootah, Egingwah, Seegloo and Ooqueah, the American explorer Robert Peary, and Henson. Born in Maryland in 1866, Henson went to sea as a cabin boy at twelve, met Peary in 1887 and went to the Arctic with him seven times; he learned the language of the Inuit, built and mended the sledges, drove the dogs and hunted. Experts still do not agree if the team reached the Pole itself. Back in the USA, Peary became famous but Henson did not: at that time, Black Americans were often treated unfairly. Henson worked in an office in New York, died in 1955, and in 1988 his body was moved to Arlington, a national cemetery, next to Peary. The narration is in the past simple, with a few passives (was born, were treated, was moved); no grammar point is taught. It is a listening comprehension episode: learners listen, then answer the 10 questions in the app: 8 on facts and 2 on vocabulary (cabin boy and treated unfairly). The study topic is explorers and life in the polar ice, then and now.

Materials & prerequisites

The folder holds the audio, the slideshow and the script; there is no lesson plan. The pupil pack and the teacher pack (answers highlighted) are one A4 page each, with the text, three pictures (a photo of Matthew Henson in his furs, a drawing of Henson and two Inuit men building a sledge, Peary's photo of the men with their flags), the key words and the 10 questions; a pupil sheet and a teacher sheet with the answer key come with them. The text ends with an open question (Think about it: Why do you think people forgot Matthew Henson for so long?). Learners should know the past simple of common verbs and be able to read dates. The pack's key words explain the new words (frozen, Inuit, explorer, poor, cabin boy, language, sledge, mend, hunt, expert, famous, unfairly).

Curriculum alignment

Tagged c4-travel-and-migration ("Voyages et migrations"), Cycle 4 (4e). The episode targets CEFR level A2+.