Thursday, November 12, 2009

PEOPLES OF BRITAIN 5


Peoples of Britain
By Dr Simon James
The 'Dark Ages'

Were the 'Celts' displaced or absorbed by the invaders?
In western and northern Britain, around the western seas, the end of Roman power saw the reassertion of ancient patterns, ie continuity of linguistic and cultural trends reaching back to before the Iron Age. Yet in the long term, the continuous development of a shifting mosaic of societies gradually tended (as elsewhere in Europe) towards larger states. Thus, for example, the far north-western, Irish-ruled kingdom of Dalriada merged in the ninth century with the Pictish kingdom to form Scotland.
'It was once believed that the Romano-British were slaughtered or driven west by hordes of invading Anglo-Saxons, part of the great westward movement of 'barbarians' overwhelming the western empire.'
The western-most parts of the old province, where Roman ways had not displaced traditional culture, also partook of these trends, creating small kingdoms which would develop, under pressure from the Saxons, into the Welsh and Cornish regions.
The fate of the rest of the Roman province was very different: after imperial power collapsed c.410 AD Romanised civilisation swiftly vanished. By the sixth century, most of Britannia was taken over by 'Germanic' kingdoms. There was apparently complete discontinuity between Roman Britain and Anglo-Saxon England; it was once believed that the Romano-British were slaughtered or driven west by hordes of invading Anglo-Saxons, part of the great westward movement of 'barbarians' overwhelming the western

NB2
- Homework: Grammar, unit 24
- Speaking: Five students talked about their summer holidays and were given a mark.
- Listening: Holidays, the last part of a set of three .EXERCISES,AUDIO : ACTVITY 2, ACTIVITY 3, ACTIVITY 4, ACTIVITY 5, ACTIVITY 6, ACTIVITY 7 . SCRIPTS. Here you´ll find all the activities related to this topic.
- Reading: St.B.p. 18 "A Moment in Time" dealing with the simple past and the past continuous. A read and match exercise.
- Grammar: I wrote a few examples on the blackboard with the use of these two tenses and once you got it ,we went to St.B.p.128 to see the rules and do the exercises. We also saw in your grammars , chapters 13,14
- Reading:St.B.p.19 "The Lovers of the Bastille" . A couple who had their picture taken without knowing it.
- Listening: About the same French couple but many years later. True-false statements which seemed to be more difficult than the other listenings we had previously done. I suggested that you should listen to the CD at home and do the exercise again.
- Homework: Grammar, unit 14, Wk.p. 15

NI2
- Homework: Grammar, unit 111. Yet, still and already.
- Speaking: Describing a photo. As nobody had done the activity, I encouraged you to do it in written form. So, send me both a picture and its description following the guidelines I gave you and I´ll post them in the blog.
- Grammar: Conditional sentences. TYPES 0,1,2 , sorry if you see the exercise of linking words first, carry on moving the mouse and the conditionals will come out soon. TYPE 3, ANSWERS.
- Speaking and Reading: A fotocopy to match sentences with LINKING WORDS.
- Homework: Do the grammar activities , you also have to pick up a photo , describe it and send it to my blog, so that I can post it.