Topic: The world outside Europe

Target group

5th‑grade students of elementary school

Core curriculum

Byzantium and the world of Islam. Pupil:

1. locates the extent of Arab expansion in time and space and explains the influence of Muslim civilization on Europe;

2. localizes the Byzantine Empire in time and space and recognizes the achievements of Byzantine culture (law, architecture, art).

General aim of education

Students learn how the non‑European world looked like in the Middle Ages

Key competences

• communication in foreign languages;

• digital competence;

• learning to learn.

Criteria for success
The student will learn:

• characterize medieval trade with the Far East;

• recognize goods transported by the Silk Road;

• recognize exotic goods that were desirable and valuable in the Middle Ages;

• describe how the world outside Europe looked like.

Methods/techniques

• activating

  • discussion.

• expository

  • talk.

• exposing

  • film.

• programmed

  • with computer;

  • with e‑textbook.

• practical

  • exercices concerned.

Forms of work

• individual activity;

• activity in pairs;

• activity in groups;

• collective activity.

Teaching aids

• e‑textbook;

• notebook and crayons/felt‑tip pens;

• interactive whiteboard, tablets/computers.

Lesson plan overview

Before classes

1. Students refer to the abstract content. They shall be able to summarize it in they own words and solve the exercices.

Introduction

1. The teacher gives the students the subject, the purpose of the lesson and the criteria for success.

2. Then the teacher introduces students to the subject, stressing that although the history we learn at school is eurocentric, and the inhabitants of the Middle Ages rarely traveled, there were also civilizations outside Europe that they had contact with.

Realization

1. The teacher begins the discussion by asking students what continents could medieval Europeans and why? Asking questions, the teacher remembers that they are to be formulated as the key questions. Students perform Exercise 1 - they look at an illustration depicting the medieval vision of the Earth and answer the question asked.

2. Then the teacher introduces students to civilizations of the Far East, focusing primarily on the Middle Kingdom, Mongols and India. He explains to students what the silk route was and how trade took place at that time. Students do Exercise 2 (list lands connected by a silk trail), Exercise 3 (view the illustration and complete sentences) and Exercise 4 (calculate the Marco Polo travel route). The teacher makes sure that the tasks have been correctly completed and gives feedback.

3. The teacher introduces students to Marco Polo and his achievements. The students additionally get acquainted with the interactive illustration in the Task 1, related to the traveler.

4. Then the teacher briefly characterizes the civilizations of India and Africa and the contacts that Europeans had with them. Students look at the illustration and do Exercise 5. The teacher provides feedback and checks the correctness of completed tasks..

Summary

1. The teacher reports on non‑European civilizations and then asks students why contact with them and knowledge about them was so limited?.

2. Students do Exercise 6, combining the given passwords with definitions.

3. The teacher assesses the students' work during the lesson, taking into account their input and commitment. For this purpose, he may prepare an evaluation questionnaire for self‑assessment and assessment of the teacher's work and other students.

Homework

1. The teacher sets homework (it is not an obligatory part of the scenario): Look for information about Rabanie Bar Saum. Find out who he was and what he did?.

The following terms and recordings will be used during this lesson

Terms

Texts and recordings

The world outside Europe

The vast majority of Europeans did not know anything beside their nearest surroundings. Only a few merchants went on further journeys. Knowledge about lands located outside Europe for a long time was limited to the information acquired from the ancients, which acknowledged the existence of only three continents – Europe, Africa and Asia.

One of the merchants who brought the East and the West closer was Marco Polo, a Venetian living at the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries. His stories about Persia, India or the Middle Kingdom not only stimulated the imagination of the rich, but also became one of the first sources of information about the life and character of the societies located there since antiquity.

China was one of the most important goals of trade expeditions in the Middle Ages. Yet, cultural gaps between China and Europe were enormous, and not just because of the distance. The largest Chinese cities at that time had more than a million inhabitants, when in Europe only a few of them reached 100,000. Paper money, which spread on our continent only in the 19th century, was widely used in commercial operations. The emperor's policy was based on trade and protection of the country, which supported its development.

The European’s next target was India, seen as a land full of treasures and colorful spices. In some respects, it was a world similar to the European one. The biggest difference in relation to the mostly Christian Europe was the multitude of religions and faiths found on the Indian Peninsula.

Africa has always been associated with Europe and its history. Its northern coast for centuries was a part of European culture, becoming a granary during the times of the Roman Empire. The high level of agriculture persisted there throughout the Middle Ages, and the occupation of these areas by the Muslims in the seventh century led to even greater economic development. The eastern part of the continent was connected with the Arab world and indirectly also with Europe. At the beginning of our era, the first Ethiopian state with the capital in Aksum was established, which accepted Christianity in the fourth century.