Introduction Part 2:
Miscellaneous Hints on how to get the best out of Crossing Cultures

1. Mixed Ability
   Above we mentioned that students in bilingual class “are all – in theory at least –students that perform exceptionally well at school”. Everyone who has ever taught knows that some students are more or less able than others, no matter how homogeneous or “exceptional” an entire class seems to be. Crossing Cultures is designed so that as many kinds of students in bilingual classes as possible can make a successful contribution.
   We have taken this mixed-ability situation into account in several ways.
   1) group work allows students to work to their own level, helped by or helping others. This also accords implicitly with the Plan-cadru’s stress on more Educaţiă Civică, as in effect do many aspects of this book.
   2) various activities can be performed to a greater or lesser extent according to the ability of the students – activity A in Introductory class 2 is a case in point. The instructions ask students to fill in any three boxes with what they think certain groups will know. More able students may fill in more than three boxes in the time allotted for the task. Similarly activity C of class A.1, or the entire class on ads (C.4), or that on the image of Queen Victoria (D.2).
   3) When different activities are provided for different groups in the class they are of different levels of difficulty. The levels of difficulty are indicated in the teacher’s notes, and not in the students’ books for obvious reasons. It will also be clear that the teacher should encourage more able students to tackle the more difficult activities while the less able the easier ones so that all can achieve something positive appropriate to their level. Class C.5, on television news, may serve as a simple example of a class with activities of varying difficulty: Activity B.1 is obviously much easier than activity B.2. More able students would be bored by B.1 while the less able may find the demands of B.2 excessive. Class C.6, on soap-operas, offers no fewer than 5 different and simultaneous activities at 4 different levels of conceptual and linguistic difficulty: activities C.1 and C.2 are easy; C.3 is more difficult; C.4 is conceptually the most difficult, while C.5 is moderately difficult.
   4) Similarly the listenings are usually of varying difficulty when there are several of them in one class. The very first introductory class is the most striking example. We have started with very simple and clear listenings in each section – Alex and Gabriel – progressed to rather more difficult ones and finished with longer listenings that are challenging both linguistically and conceptually. In this way, all kinds of students will successfully be able to do something challenging.
   5) Occasionally, we explicitly offer classes that provide very variable configuration according to the interests and abilities of the students. Class B.6 on Gendering the Canon is one case.
2. Group Work
   It will be clear from the very first class that group work forms a fundamental part of the methodology of this book. Indeed, class 2 even discusses the advantages and disadvantages of group work. As we have said, fundamental to BCS is the incorporation of a variety of viewpoints and this can best be achieved in action, not just by reading about it. A multiplicity of viewpoints can be achieved though different groups doing different things simultaneously and then exchanging what they have learnt afterwards.
   What we have called “jigsaw” activities below (reinforcing this name with an icon) will be familiar to many from ELT, but there are significant differences from the information exchange that jigsaws involve in ELT. For a start, one part of the “jigsaw” may contradict another (as in class A.4 for example), or alternative ways of looking at something may be presented (as in B.1 or B.6 for example). Almost never will one part of the jigsaw “complete” another. It is far more likely to contest it. Rather than “jigsaw” therefore this approach more nearly resembles a kind of dynamic cubism (perhaps we should have used as an icon a painting by Braque).
   Some teachers have already told us they don’t like this kind of activity as they believe the all the students should do all the activities all at the same time. We gave reasons above for the educational and methodological necessity for group work. Here we will add only that it is an efficient way of getting through a lot of material, sorting out the useful from the useless. We can also add that it is highly motivating for students in the sense that in the culminating plenary, during which groups report their tasks, students really don’t know what other groups have done and so will listen more willingly.
   We call for a variety of different group sizes but very rarely specify the exact size of the group, preferring to use the terms “small groups” or “plenary” or “five groups”. The size of each group will depend on the size and dynamic of the class, and the geography of the classroom. Some desks and chairs are, we know, nailed to the floor or are very heavy and are designed to force students to look only to the front, so circles of students are impossible to manage. That is why we leave the distribution of the groups up to the teacher.
   We strongly recommend that teachers circulate during group work and intervene as necessary, making sure as far as possible that discussions take place in English. But even if not, students will still be learning as long as they keep to the tasks.
    BCS is NOT a language class!
    Capacitaţi intelectuale superioare are not exclusive to the English language!
3. The Pictures
   The pictures have three main purposes in this book, but it is as well to state immediately what they are NOT intended for. We do not wish to encourage a tourist view of Britain and accordingly – with the notable exception of Class A.1’s picture of Caernarfon Castle – we have completely eschewed such pictures. They are readily available from a variety of sources.
   1) many are designed to illustrate vocabulary items – the leek in the lesson on Wales, the skipping rope in the lesson on Queen Victoria, the cell or bone (with marrow showing) in the class on genetics, the illustrations around Goblin Market.
   2) others are intended to focus or stimulate thought: the stereotypical male experimenter in the class on genetics is designed not to reinforce this stereotype but to challenge it by making it obvious; the pictures of televisions in the classes on soaps and TV news are intended to make students focus on the issues involved; the confused collage of Scottish icons is intended to demonstrate the problematic density of one of the interviews, and so on…
   3) a third group of pictures is designed for study. These are almost always optional and are in some ways intended to be “carrots” or “rewards”: most students, even in 12th grade, like analysing photographs. This kind of activity is gradually introduced: the analysis of magazine and newspapers in class is first, followed by the picture of Christina Rossetti. This in turn is followed by analysis of ads (the only compulsory analysis of visuals in the book), and then by the photos of Diana. The optional class on Queen Victoria concentrates on the process of analysing images in detail, getting students to consider what that process comprises, before a final optional assessment unit is based almost entirely on pictures of Queen Elizabeth II.
4. Follow-up Activities/ Atestat
   Almost all of the classes suggest “Follow-Up Activities”, most of which can be used valuably for the atestat. We suggest a large variety of activities, many involving ethnographic research of a kind that is intended to be useful to different kinds of student after they leave school. For example, there are activities for budding journalists, for students who wish to go into advertising or public relations or the media, and even for managers. Others are more “academic” and book bound, but all require the use of cognitive skills rather than encourage the reproduction that the Ministry justly decries.
5. How to use the Teacher’s Notes to each class
   We strongly recommend you carefully read the notes to each class before you teach it. Each gives background information as well as a lesson plan with timings for each activity.

 We want to stress that each class – except where otherwise stated – should last no more than 50 minutes.
 If you allow discussion to get out of hand too often or consistently try to translate every word, you will never finish the core course of 23 classes and three assessments.
 The background information in these Notes is intended to help the teacher feel more confidence about teaching what may be an unfamiliar subject in an unfamiliar way. It is NOT intended that you teach this background material and certainly not that you dictate it. To do so would be counterproductive to the Reform and to the purposes of Crossing Cultures.

Of course, you may find that some classes do take more than one period to teach even according to the methodology we suggest. Provided that this does not happen consistently you should have enough time to finish the core course either in one semester at 2 classes a week or, with one class a week, over the course of a year.
The 23 classes and three assessments of the core course should be done in order. As in a language course, it is not advisable to pick and choose from amongst them or do them in any order. That would seriously damaging the developmental coherence of the course, as of course it would with an EFL textbook. For example, students will be unable to do the class on Scotland (A.4), if they have not already done class A.1 which explains the concepts of “imagined communities”, and even A.1 will not make sense unless you have done the two introductory classes which concentrate on BCS methodology itself. Similarly, the classes on Northern Ireland (A.5 and A.6) will not make sense without already having done class A.3 which introduces the concepts of ethnicity and “passing”.
The fourth section, section D, contains classes and one assessment that have no teacher’s notes. They revise and consolidate concepts that have gone before and as a result they can be done in any order –or omitted entirely – as time and interest dictate. You will note that the assessment is based on one class from section D, so if you choose to do the assessment, you will have to do that class beforehand, but that is the only constraint. These classes are intended as providing a further set of model classes for BCS rather than as finished classes, as stimuli to creativity rather than fetters. For example, you may feel that students will not like a class on the nineteenth century since they will have studied it in 11th grade. Without too much difficulty, you can adapt the class– or better, get your students to adapt it – to any twentieth-century media figure.
We have left quite a lot of blank space for you to insert your own notes to and comments on each class.
Finally, as in the students’ book, we have inserted a questionnaire at the back of the Teacher’s Notes asking for your suggestions and comments. All replies, positive or negative, will be welcomed as signs of engagement in that dialogic process which is education in the most profound sense.