Scots language and culture teacher CPD Unit 2.2 Activity 2A Model answer These are model answers to questions i-iv. You might have noted down other aspects. 

i) Literacy is the main one. The activities also touch on Sciences, Technologies and Mathematics. I can see how different teachers would teach this in different ways, but those 4 curriculum areas are certainly all available to explore in such a lesson. 

ii) There are Listening and Talking skills involved throughout. Also Reading. I’m not sure if this is in the video, but I would give the class a copy of the poem to read, or I’d put it on the board for the class to read. We see the learners writing numbers for parts of the lesson, then at the end they add up all the food miles together, reinforcing their Numeracy skills. 

iii) It’s interesting how the teacher uses a mix of Scots and English with the class. The poem is recited in Scots, and the discussion of vocabulary requires the class to give definitions. In the Education Scotland CfE Briefing: Scots Language paper I learned about utilising regional varieties of Scots depending on where you are. You can see in the video that the teacher gives instructions to the class like, “Do you kaen the Shetland wird fir ...” or “Haes onybody been tae ony o dis plaeces?” The children in the class might answer in English, but by giving the correct answer it shows they understood when listening to Scots instructions and questions. 

iv) I assume he knew the class well and what language skills they had. It isn’t quite ‘Scots Medium Education’ as English is also used, but the class certainly seem able to understand whether he speaks to them in Scots or in English. Which I think is a real benefit for using Scots in the classroom. The similarities between Scots and English make a lesson like this quite do-able with a class where not everyone is a natural Scots speaker

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