The Road Not Taken: England, Great Britain and the UK. Do you know the difference?

The other day a friend of my daughter said: "I have lived in England for three years". " Have you?" I asked. "Yes," she said, "when we all lived in Scotland". The girl has just turned six, and I really do not blame her for not quite knowing the difference between England and Scotland. It is a fact, however, that quite many Norwegians do not know that England is only one of three countries in Great Britain, and that Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom and has Queen Elizabeth II as their head of state. I usually spend some time explaining this to my students, using the board and a map. Next time, however, I think I will play this video to them, simply because it explains it much better than I can do (even though he might consider making a new version where he speaks a bit slower...).

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

The Road Not Taken

Wednesday 2 February 2011

England, Great Britain and the UK. Do you know the difference?

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