Topic: The New Epoch

Target group

6th‑grade students of elementary school

Core curriculum

VIII. Great geographical discoveries. Student:

1. explains the causes and evaluates the impact of geographical discoveries on the socio‑economic and cultural life of Europe and the New World;

2. places in time and space discoveries of Christopher Columbus, Vasco da Gama, Ferdinand Magellan, and places in space colonial estates of Portugal and Spain.

General aim of education

The student will learn about the characteristic features of the Renaissance, a new era.

Key competences

• communication in foreign languages;

• digital competence;

• learning to learn.

Criteria for success
The student will learn:

• to explain how people determine the beginnings and ends of epochs and historical periods;

• to place historical events in time and space;

• to define what chronology is about;

• to recognize dates which are considered to be the beginning of the New Epoch – the Renaissance.

Methods/techniques

• expository

  • talk.

• activating

  • discussion.

• 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, using the resources of the Internet and other source materials, gather general information and curiosities regarding the thematic scope of the planned lesson.

Introduction

1. The teacher plays the recording of the abstract. Every now and then he stops it, asking the students to tell in their own words what they have just heard. This way, students practice listening comprehension.

2. Lesson is conducted using the Oxford debate method on the The discovery of America was the true end of the Middle Ages.. At one of the previous meetings, the teacher should introduce the students to the topic, assign them appropriate roles and, if necessary, explain the method. During the preparation for the debate, students should use the information contained in the abstract and other sources, as well as collaborate in the preparation of arguments.

Realization

1. Reading the content of the abstract. The teacher uses the text for individual work or in pairs, according to the following steps: 1) a sketchy review of the text, 2) asking questions, 3) accurate reading, 4) a summary of individual parts of the text, 5) repeating the content or reading the entire text.

2. Students analyze the gallery of illustrations and execute Task 1. To answer the question, they can use Internet sources or other publications. The teacher checks the correctness of the answer and provides feedback to the students.

3. Students analyze the illustrations and execute Exercise 1. To answer the questions, they can use Internet sources or other publications. The teacher checks the correctness of the answer and provides feedback to the students.

4. Analysis of the interactive illustration. Participants familiarize themselves with the content presented in the interactive illustration. Then the teacher discusses the issues with the students.

5. Students in pairs solve the Exercise 2.

Summary

1. The teacher asks the students questions:

   • What did you find important and interesting in class?

   • What was easy and what was difficult?

   • How can you use the knowledge and skills you have gained today?

   Willing/selected students summarize the lesson

2. The teacher asks students to carry out the interactive exercise themselves. Then makes sure that the task has been correctly completed and gives feedback.

Homework

1. Listen to the abstract recording at home. Pay attention to pronunciation, accent and intonation. Learn to pronounce the words learned during the lesson.

2. Make at home a note from the lesson, for example using the sketchnoting method.

The following terms and recordings will be used during this lesson

Terms

Texts and recordings

The New Epoch

Periodisation, that is the division of time into periods, is a natural process which has accompanied humans since the dawn of time. Since time immemorial, people have tried to mark boundaries and divide the flow of time. In this way, they described duration of the rule of a leader, the existence of a state (city), or the length of their own lives. That need led to the emergence of the science of measuring and dividing time, called chronology. The basic question related to chronology is the way of the beginning and the end of overlapping periods of time, or epochs should be set, and whether it is possible to precisely determine them at all. The answers to those questions were the subject of the deliberations of the scientists of the modern epoch. In the 17th century, they were the first to set the boundaries which separated consecutive historical epochs, whose beginnings and ends were very often associated with ground‑breaking events or discoveries, considered by posterity to be the end of “old times”.

So what could end the epoch of the Middle Ages? One can list a few such ground‑breaking events in the history of Europe and the world. They are commonly acknowledged to be the fall of Constantinople (1453), the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg (around 1450), or the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus (1492). Regardless of the event which we consider to be the beginning of the new epoch – the modern period – each of them was an event, after which the world was never the same again. But only people who lived many decades later found that out…

Think, if you recognise any of the styles in music, architecture, fashion or literature. How do you know you are visiting a medieval and not a baroque castle? How can you tell the old masters from the modern ones?