As well as national costume, national dishes and a national sport, a nation should have a dance. Argentina has its tango, Poland has the polka, Russia has the russkaya plyasovaya and England has the morris.

Every May Day, outside the village pubs of England, you can see strangely dressed people jumping into the air, waving handkerchiefs and sticks, with bells jingling from their clothing. They perform a traditional morris dance and welcome the return of spring.

The origins of morris dancing have been lost in history, but most specialists agree that it goes back at least to the 15th century.
There are many styles of morris dancing. The most well-known of them is the Cotswold Morris dance (the Cotswolds is a hilly region in south-west England).
In addition to the dancers there are often other characters involved. The most common is a fool, who keeps the public amused and the dancers in order. The fool has another important job - that of collecting money from the audience.

SCHOOL-LEAVING AGE

• Children have to stay at school until the age of 16. There is no upper age limit.

ALCOHOL

• You have to be 18 to buy alcohol in a shop or a pub, but if you are 16 and you are having a meal in a pub, you can drink beer or wine with it.

PROSECUTION

• In Scotland, you can be prosecuted for a crime at the age of 8. In England and Wales, the age is 10. You can't be sent to prison until you are 21.

On the north-east coast of Northern Ireland you can see a mass of unusually shaped rocks. Scientists say that that they were formed by a flow of lava into the sea about 60-65 million years ago. But when these amazing rocks were discovered in the late 17th century, it wasn't known whether they were formed by men with tools or naturally. So another theory went round, too - that they were the work of the giant called Finn McCool.

The Liberty Bell

The Liberty Bell is a symbol of freedom. It was made in London and taken to Philadelphia in 1752 where it cracked when it was first used. It was repaired, and when the Declaration of Independence was signed, it rang out the day. It cracked again in 1835 and 1846. In 1976 it was placed in a special case of glass and steel behind Independence Hall (the building in Philadelphia where the Declaration of Independence was written and signed).

Stars and Stripes

The flag of the US has 13 stripes for the 13 original colonies and 50 stars for the 50 states. American citizens and immigrants sometimes recite the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag: 'I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the Unites States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, One Nation, under God, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.'

"The Great Mississippi, the majestic, the magnificent Mississippi, rolling its mile-wide tide along, shining in the sun."
Mark Twain

"A raindrop falling at Lake Itasca (at the Mississippi headwaters) would arrive at the Gulf of Mexico in about 90 days."
National Park Service

•     Chicago is the third largest American city. It is in the state of Illinois on Lake Michigan. It was founded in the 1830s and quickly became the transportation, financial and industrial centre of the American Middle West.

•     The world's first skyscrapers appeared in Chicago. They were built after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. The fire lasted 27 hours and destroyed 17,450 buildings.
•     During Prohibition Chicago was known for its gangsters. The most notorious of them was Al Capone. He had seven rival criminals murdered in the St Valentine's Day Massacre, but the police couldn't find enough evidence on which to arrest him. He was finally sent to prison in 1931 for not paying enough income tax.

SCHOOL-LEAVING AGE
Children have to stay at school until the age of 16. There is no upper age limit.

ALCOHOL
You have to be 18 to buy alcohol in a shop or a pub, but if you are 16 and you are having a meal in a pub, you can drink beer or wine with it.

PROSECUTION
In Scotland, you can be prosecuted for a crime at the age of 8. In England and Wales, the age is 10. You can't be sent to prison until you are 21.

Windsor Castle is English history in a nutshell, and what a majestic nutshell it is! The site has been the official residence of kings and queens from William the Conqueror to the present day. Royals have been born, married and buried in the castle.
Windsor Castle began its life as a wooden fort built by William the Conqueror in the 11th century, and later kings and queens had a hand in its evolution. Henry II pulled down the wooden buildings and rebuilt it in stone. George IV turned it into a palace. In 1917, King George V chose the castle's name as the Royal Family's, replacing the old one, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. From that time, the name of the monarchy would be the House of Windsor.

• Los Angeles is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States. The Los Angeles area, which includes the city itself and its suburbs, has a population of 13.6 million.
• Los Angeles's nicknames are LA and the City of Angels. Some people also call it 'La-La Land' because they think the city is full of strange and crazy people.
  
• The inhabitants of Los Angeles are called Angelenos.

The second part of the introduction to Millie.

Multi-sensory approach

All children are different and learn in different ways. This is why it’s important to engage all the senses and use a variety of techniques. We encourage teachers to use sounds, music, pictures and other visual aids (including real objects that the children can touch and smell). It’s also important to make use of the children’s natural need to move around and incorporate physical movements and mime into any language work. The more opportunities a teacher has to combine the different senses, the better.

Making this important link between listening, speaking and movement, we regularly introduce “action stories”. Here the language which children hear is supported with actions to aid memorisation and to make the activity more enjoyable. The teacher introduces the movements and the children join in. (E.g. PB: U8, L3, pp. 84–85.)