Wales: one mountain with two names

Objective & content

This Look Closer episode (the mini-series Wales: the land of the dragon, one surprising Welsh story per episode) is a short documentary about the highest mountain in Wales, 1,085 metres high. A single narrator explains that thousands of people go to the top every year, on foot or by a little train that opened in 1896, and that the mountain has two names: Snowdon in English, which means "snow hill", and Yr Wyddfa in Welsh, which people say means "the grave". An old story goes with the Welsh name: King Arthur fought a giant there and won, and the giant lies under the stones at the top. The narrator then tells how, in 2022, the national park around the mountain chose to use the Welsh name in English too, while the English name is not wrong, and looks closer at a wall at the top that shows the two names. It is a comprehension episode: the narration uses the present simple, the past simple (opened, fought, won, made), the highest and can, and no grammar point is taught. Learners listen, then answer the 10 questions in the app: 7 on facts and 3 on vocabulary (top, giant, decision).

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 photos (the top of the mountain against the sky, the little mountain train full of passengers, the stone wall at the top with the two names carved side by side), the key words and the 10 questions. The folder also holds a one-page pupil sheet with the 10 questions and a teacher sheet with the answer key. Play the episode twice, hand out the pupil pack, then use the closing question (Do you know a place with two names?) for a short class discussion; places in France with a name in French and in a regional language work well. Learners should know the words mountain, snow, train and king. The Welsh name appears on screen and in the text; pupils do not need to say it.

Curriculum alignment

Tagged languages-places-stories (5e, "Des langues, des lieux, des histoires", Cycle 4) and the-united-kingdom (5e, "Le Royaume-Uni"): one place, two languages, two names. The episode targets CEFR level A2-.