England and Russia, relations and traditions

Разделы: Иностранные языки, Внеклассная работа


Вниманию читателей предлагается сценарий открытого мероприятия, проведенного с учащимися старших классов в рамках декады иностранных языков. На уроках английского языка учащиеся приобщаются к культуре, традициям и обычаям страны изучаемого языка, сравнивают их с российскими. Вместе с тем, учеников интересуют отношения, сложившиеся между Англией и Россией на протяжении веков, исторические факты и события, а также исторические личности, которые внесли свой вклад в развитие таких отношений.

Цель мероприятия: обобщение и расширение знаний учащихся по означенной тематике; повышение мотивации к изучению иностранных языков.

Задачи мероприятия:

  • Познавательные: совершенствование навыков и умений учащихся в чтении, говорении, аудировании.
  • Развивающие: осуществление межпредметных связей, развитие умений переносить ранее полученные знания на родном языке в область английского языка, расширение общего кругозора.
  • Воспитательные: воспитание толерантности, бережного отношения к истории, традициям и обычаям своей страны, умения работать в команде.

Оборудование и материалы: компьютер, интерактивная доска, географические карты России, Великобритании и мира, тематические плакаты, газеты, подготовленные учащимися.

Подготовка к мероприятию. Классы делятся на группы, которые получают конкретные тематические задания:

  • 1 группа – подготовить сообщения об истории возникновения и установления политических, экономических и культурных связей между Англией и Россией;
  • 2 группа – подготовить сообщения об исторических событиях и личностях, повлиявших на развитие отношений между Англией и Россией;
  • 3 группа – подготовить сообщения об интересных, необычных фактах и событиях, имевших место в отношениях двух стран.

ХОД МЕРОПРИЯТИЯ

Ведущий: Good morning dear friends! Today we devote our meeting to one of the most interesting theme for us – “England and Russia, their relations and traditions”. Let’s start our meeting. First, answer my questions, please.

1. Have you ever travelled abroad?
2. What impressed you most of all: people, climate, traditions, places of interest or anything else?
3. If you are going to visit a country, what will you do to find out some facts about it? 4. Are you interested in the relations between this country and Russia?
5. Have you ever been to England?

Учащиеся отвечают на вопросы ведущего.

Ведущий: Thank you, dear friends, for your answers. Now let’s have a talk about England and Russia, their relations and traditions.
Puple: Russia and England are old acquaitances. Although they are located at either end of Europe, over the centuries they have been linked in a number of different ways. It is well known that two Anglo-Saxon princes, the sons of Edmund Ironside ( Эдмунд Железнобокий) lived at the court of Yaroslav the Wise in Kiev. The daughter of the last Anglo-Saxon king, Harold Gytha, fled to Rus where she became the wife of Vladimir Monomach. It is even possible that she was the mother of Yuri Dolgorukiy.
B: When were official relations between England and Russia established? How did it happen?
P: Historians date the start of official relations between the two states to 1553. In that year, English merchants loaded up three boats and set sail to look for a new route to China. Unfortunately they did not find China, but they did discover a northern sea route to far off Muscovy. The journey was a hard one which lasted six months, but Richard Chancellor, an experienced sailor, finally brought his ship to the narrow Northern Straits. They arrived in Archangelsk. Chancellor went to Moscow where he was presented to Ivan the Terrible, who was the Tsar of Russia at that time. From that moment on, close trade and diplomatic relations were established between the two countries.
B: Who was one of the first Russian travelers to England? What was his main aim?
P: One of the first Russian travelers to England was Peter the First. His aim was to study shipbuilding. He made a favorable impression on the English. As the leader of a far-off, enormous, barbarian country, travelling incognito and declining the respect which would have accompanied his position, he was surrounded by a certain aura of romanticism. Nobody expected the ‘barbarian’ to be such an interesting and outstanding person. He was lodged at Deptford, not far from Greenwich, next to the wharves. Shipbuilding, for which the English were famous, was what interested him most in England.
B: What case can characterize Peter’s manners in England?
P: Peter stayed in a house belonging to the English writer, John Evelyn. After the Russians had left, the house was in such an awful state that the owner was forced to make a request to the government for damage compensation. A special governmental commission was set up in order to investigate the details of that case. Evelyn received compensation, but did not rebuild the house and, in fact, sold it. As you see, Peter did not have good manners at that time. Nowadays Deptford is hardly the most fashionable area of London but memories of the Russian Tsar are still alive. In any case, regulars at the local pub, which bears John Evelyn’s name, still recall Peter.
P: Russians continued to visit England, and vice versa. We have always wanted to know more about each other. In fact, it only seems that England and Russia are far from each other. In a pond in St James’ Park, the oldest royal park located right in the centre of London, there are the descendants of two pelicans which were given to King Charles II by the Russian Ambassador in 1684. From time to time, new birds are brought here and each time, in accordance with tradition, they come from Russia. Most recently the two birds from Astrakhan were named Astra and Khan. Today they delight English children who have no idea of their Russian origins.
B: Did the Romanovs have any family links with the British royal family?
P: Yes, they did. There were rumours about the mutual attraction between the young Queen Victoria and the future Emperor Alexander II. They met in London in 1838. Now, of course, it is difficult to see whether this was simply gossip on the truth and whether any affection actually flared up in their young hearts. But much later their children, and then grandchildren, linked the royal families. Alfred, Victoria’s second son, married Maria, Alexander’s daughter. Two of Victoria’s grandchildren married into the Romanovs household: Elizabeth became the wife of Grand Prince Sergei Alexandrovich and Alexandra became the wife of Nikolai II.
B: Why was one of the streets in London named after Semyon Romanovich Vorontsov?
P: Count Semyon Romanovich Vorontsov was the Russian Ambassador to England and did much to develop the relations between the two countries. In his will, Count Vorontsov left 500 pounts sterling to the needy in the London parish of Marylebone, where he lived. These funds were used to build two houses for the poor living on the streets, which were named in his honour. Just recently a memorial plague was unveiled on the walls of one of those houses in Vorontsov Street.
B: What about Vorontsov’s sister?
P: Vorontsov’s sister, Ekaterina, became the wife of the Eleventh Earl of Pembroke. Pembroke’s marvelous estate, Wilton House, which opened to the public in 1952, still contains vestiges of Russia. The descendants of Ekaterina and the English earl live in the house to this day, and portraits of her father, who lived out his days in his daughter’s house, hang on the walls. There are also portraits of Ekaterina at various ages and the bust of her famous brother, who was a frequent guest in his sister’s home.
B: What is the garden of the Pembroke’s marvelous estate, Wilton House, famous for?
P: In the central lawn of the beautiful garden there is an oak tree planted personally by Nikolai Pavlovich, the future Emperor Nikolai I.
B: Why did the Vorontsov palace in the Crimea go down in world history?
P: The Vorontsov palace in the Crimea went down in world history as the place where Winston Churchill lived at the time of the famous Yalta Conference in 1945. Churchill was delighted by the palace and felt himself at home there, which is hardly surprising given that the architect, Edward Blore, who drew up the plans for the Vorontsov palace, had also designed Westminster Abbey and the façade of Buckingham Palace.
B: They say that there is also a sort of mystical thread which ties our two peoples, isn’t there?
P: Yes, there is. For example, we have the same national saint, Saint George. In the 14th century, the red and white flag – the symbol of St George- become the English national flag. At the same time, the knight killing the serpent became the emblem of the increasingly powerful Moscow.
P: The last Russian Emperor looked like the English King George V. The likeness was so startling that on the day of George’s wedding, one of the guests asked him: ‘And you, Your Highness, did you come specially for the wedding or are you attending to some other matters as well?’ He had decided that he was talking to the Russian heir to the throne.
P: And, coming as a complete surprise in the 20th century was the proclamation by the Russian Orthodox Church in exile of the sainthood of the English King Edward, who was killed in 978 (even before Rus was converted to Christianity).
B: How did Edward die?
P: Edward was killed in 978 at the age of 16 while he was visiting his stepmother and stepbrother who, as one could have guessed, inherited the throne after him. The death of a king was, at that time, nothing out of the ordinary, and as a small compensation they were quite often subsequently proclaimed to be saints.
B: Why did the cult of Edward grow to such a size soon after his death?
P: Because soon after his death, Edward’s relics started to work miracles and upon his brother’s order they were reburied in the central cathedral of the nunnery at Shaftsbury. The cult of Edward grew to such a size, that not only was the abbey, which had become an important pilgrimage site, renamed after him, but Shaftsbury itself was often called Edwardtown.
B: Why was the English King Edward canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church?
P: During the reign of Henry VIII, the monasteries were dissolved and the cult of relics banned, the saint’s remains disappeared. They were only returned in 1931, when they were dug up by an
amateur historian from his parents’ garden (part of which, as it happened, was on the territory of the former monastery). This caught the public interest for several decades. Were they really the saint’s relics and, if yes, to whom do they belong? To the amateur historian, to his family, or to the state, and also, to which church do they now belong, since the Anglican church still has no cult of relics, and the Catholics have their own saints. Which is where the Russian Orthodox Church abroad comes in, deciding to take him as their own saint. As we all know, the Russian Orthodox Church has a particular respect for those innocent boys from the tsar’s family that have been murdered. As a result, the brotherhood oh Saint Edward, which is made up of orthodox Englishmen, grew up in the centre of England. The brotherhood is in good health, with an orthodox service held every day in a reconstructed Anglican church with icons on the wall, including new ones of ‘The Holy Right-Believing Edward, King of England, The Passion-Bearer’.
B: Thank you very much, children, for your interesting reports.
At the end of our meeting let’s solve the quiz to find out how well you know about relations between England and Russia.

Quiz

  • When were official relations established between Russia and England?
  • What route did English merchants want to find?
  • Who was one of the first Russian travelers to England?
  • What interested him most in England?
  • Where do pelicans that have been living in St James’ Park for more than 300 years come from?
  • What is the garden of the Pembroke’s marvelous estate, Wilton House, famous for?
  • Who did the last Russian Emperor look like?
  • What national saint do the Russians share with the English?
  • How did the English King Edward die?
  • Why was Edward canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church abroad?

Литература:

1. Павловская А. Англия и англичане. narody.ru, Москва, 2008.
2. Журнал ‘Speak out’, № 5, 2003.
3. ТитоваС.В. England and the English. Учебное пособие к видеокурсу по английскому языку и культуре. Москва, Центручебфильм, 2009.
4. ГурьяноваМ.Ф., МайерЛ.В. Peter the Great and his capital. Москва, изд-во «1 сентября», 2011.
5. Интернет-ресурсы