In 2023 Victory Day is going to be celebrated for the 78th time. It is a lot of years. Despite the voices saying it is too many years to continue commemorating, every year millions of people still  bring flowers to the monuments devoted to the solders and victims of the Second World War and join the parades with portraits of their family heroes. We are going to suggest you materials for a lesson about Victory Day for Upper-Intermediate students.

Lesson plan:

  1. Reading
  2. Answer the questions
  3. Match the words
  4. Find words
  5. Answer the questions 2

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1. Reading

Match the headings to their paragraphs.

  1. People marched with portraits of their family members, participants of the War.
  2. There are flowers at the foot of the monument.
  3. World War II caused irreparable damage to all the countries — participants.
  4. Being rebuilt from rubble.
  5. Cruelty is perfectly unacceptable.
  6. The great threat unfortunately still exists.
  7. The number of Soviet people who fell in the battles of World War II.

In the beginning of May plenty of people all over the world wish to commemorate the date of victory against fascism in World War II with reverence and deep emotion. Why is the Victory Day being celebrated for the 78th time this year still considered to be a remarkable event in a lot of people’s lives, despite the fact that there are very few real witnesses and participants of those days still alive? The answer is very easy.

План урока Victory Day: как отмечают в разных странах и почему
From the personal archive of Tatyana Tyumentseva
A. According to different specialists and committees, including the opinion of German specialist Helmut Arntz  announced in 1953, the number of World War II casualties of the Soviet Union was more than 20 million people. Later researches regarded the losses were much more. According to the resource “Britannica” casualties of Europe were also enormous:  “The total for Europe alone was 15 million to 20 million — more than twice as many as in World War I. At least 6 million Jewish men, women, and children, and millions of others, died in Hitler’s extermination camps”. As for the USSR it was every sixth or eighth citizen who was killed at combats of the War or died of starvation or was forced to work extremely hard on plants and factories of Nazi Germany or was martyred in military prisons and extermination camps no exception for small children or elders.
B. No wonder that the Immortal Regiment parades being held all over the world from 2015 to 2021 evoked a response in a lot of people’s hearts. Almost every family in the former USSR and Europe has their own family or friend hero whose life was changed by that awful war forever. Hardly could that great sorrow thereby be forgotten.
C. Besides people a lot of cities in different countries were almost absolutely destroyed. Those included Stalingrad (now — Volgograd), Kursk in Russia, Minsk in Belarus, Warsaw, Gdansk in Poland, Coventry in Britain, Dresden and Berlin in Germany and a lot of others. World War II caused great damage to state economy of a great amount of countries. It took from ten to thirty years to restore life to what it was before the war.
D. Besides great losses the lesson of World War II was unprecedented violence and inhumanity being displayed by people of different nations obsessed with the idea of dividing humans into “pure race” and “lower”, “loathsome creatures”, the main idea of fascism. This horrendous strategy is against the Life itself as rare animals are so violent to any creatures especially to beings of their own species.
E. In different countries, therefore, a lot of people commemorate the Victory Day by bringing flowers to the monuments of defenders against fascism. One of them is Soviet War Memorial (Treptower Park) in Berlin. The memorials in the park are not only commemorative to great losses of the war, moreover, they serve as cemeteries for about 7 000 people of those 80 000 who fell in the Battle of Berlin. There are also great events to visit memorials devoted to the Holocaust in Poland one of the most terrifying pages in the human history.
F. Thus the results of World War II must never be forgotten, neither in 20 nor in 80 years. It is inadmissible to allow the Nazi ideology develop again and infect any health society with its devastating ideas.

Keys: A—3, B—1, C—4, D—5,  E—2, F—6 

2. Read again and answer the questions

  1. What approximate number of World War II casualties of the Soviet Union are considered to be the real number nowadays?
  2. What categories are included in the people losses?
  3. Why do people continue telling their children about World War II?
  4. What cities had almost been in rubble by the end of the War? 
  5. What is the greatest lesson of World War II?
  6. What memories does the Treptower Park in Berlin keep?

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3. Match the words from the text to their definitions

  1. _____ verb to remember officially and give respect to a great person or event, especially by a public ceremony or by making a statue (paragraph 1);
  2. _____ noun  a feeling of respect or admiration for someone or something (paragraph 1);
  3. _____ noun (plural) a person injured or killed in a serious accident or war (paragraph A);
  4. _____ _____ phrase also known as “death camps” were built by Nazi Germany during World War II. The goal of the death camps was to kill millions of people as quickly as possible (paragraph A);
  5. _____ noun a fight, especially during a war (paragraph A);
  6. _____ verb to make someone remember something or feel an emotion or to make a feeling or a memory occur (paragraph B);
  7.  _____ verb to return something or someone to an earlier good condition or position (paragraph C);
  8.  _____ adj. never having happened or existed in the past (paragraph D); 
  9.  _____ adj. extremely unpleasant, disgusting (paragraph D);
  10.  _____ adj. very unpleasant or shocking (paragraph D);
  11. _____ adj. causing a lot of damage or destruction (paragraph F).
Keys:

1. commemorate
2. reverence
3. casualties
4. extermination camps
5. combat
6. evoke
7. to restore
8. unprecedented
9. loathsome
10. horrendous
11. devastating

4. Find words

Find four more words which are new for you and explain their meanings from the context.

План урока Victory Day: как отмечают в разных странах и почему
From the personal archive of Tatyana Tyumentseva

5. Answer the questions 2

  1. Have you ever taken part in the Immortal Regiment? If not would you like to participate when they continue to be held again? Why?
  2. Are there witnesses or participants of the Great Patriotic War in your family? What do you know about them? How did the War influence your grandparents and great grandparents lives?
  3. Do you agree with the idea of the text that Victory Day and the results of World War II must never be forgotten? Why?
  4. Did you know about the Nuremberg trials? What charges do you think were declared there?
  5. Look at the monument of the soldier in Soviet War Memorial in Berlin? What elements do you see? What do you think they symbolize?
  6. This statue of the Warrior was created as one of three great monuments devoted to World War II. All three they are a triptych. The second monument is  Rear-front Memorial in Magnitogorsk in Russia. The third is one of the most famous and biggest monuments in Russia commemorating the Great Patriotic War. Can you guess the third monument’s name and where it is?
План урока Victory Day: как отмечают в разных странах и почему
From the personal archive of Tatyana Tyumentseva
Key:

“The Motherland Calls” on Mamaev Kurgan in Volgograd — former Stalingrad.

I hope these materials will help you to create a very important and interesting discussion about Victory Day and enlarge your students’ vocabulary.

Комментарии (6)
  • Фото аватара
    Светлана Юрьевна

    Спасибо за подготовленный урок. Уже провела со взрослыми учениками. Лексика очень полезная для данного уровня.

    10.05.2023
  • Фото аватара
    Мария

    Спасибо за материал! Жаль, что много ошибок, и в тексте, и в заданиях. Перед использованием материала пришлось править и проверять.

    Один заголовок совершенно не подходит, много грамматических огрехов, в задании на vocabulary слова descendants в тексте вообще нет, слово devastated не в том абзаце.

    09.05.2023
    • Анна Михайлова (Левина) Автор блога skyteach.ru
      Анна Михайлова-Левина

      Мария, спасибо за вашу внимательность и комментарий! Поправили статью. Извините за неудобства.

      10.05.2023
  • Фото аватара
    Елена

    Спасибо за материал!!!

    08.05.2023
  • Фото аватара
    Алина

    Здравствуйте, как скачать этот урок?

    08.05.2023
    • Анна Михайлова (Левина) Автор блога skyteach.ru
      Анна Михайлова-Левина

      Алина, здравствуйте! Можете просто скопировать текст статьи)

      09.05.2023

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