A Humble People

Starter :

In your group
discuss what you consider important in the way two people communicate with each other.
Food for thought:
eye-contact / non-verbal messages / feedback / positive support / criticism vs praise / time and place / “I”language / expressing emotions / listening …

for illustrative material see
Martyn Ford, Peter Legon, The How To Be British Collection

Texte:
A Humble People
Context 21 , Cornelsen 2010
Seite 34/35
Social Dis-Ease
Summit G8 , Schöningh 2010
Seite 25

Working with the texts

In the text the author deals with what she considers as the typical British problem of behaving appropriately in social situations or as she puts it the British incompetence in the field of social interaction .

autism
agoraphobia An Englishman’s home is his castle
embarrassment (oi- what you looking at)
insularity
awkwardness
perverse obliqueness
emotional constipation
fear of intimacy
over-polite
buttoned up
awkwardly restrained
loud
loutish
crude
violent
obnoxious

games, pubs, clubs, weather-speak (Nice day, isn’t it), cyberspace, pets

Material 8: textwork: Concepts of national identity: Herunterladen [doc] [89 KB]