Discuss the derivation of words like wardrobe, portmanteau, television, audio, camera, facsimile etc. Why do pupils think scientists prefer to call new technology by Latin and Greek names?
Read The Golem by Isaac Bashevis Singer in class, and explore the links with other mythologies.
Encourage students to read aloud from Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood - from “Organ Morgan at his bedroom window” to “grieve for their milk-soaked sops”. Note the Welsh constructions and rhythms.
Students should read Chaucer’s description of the Squire, in his Prologue to The Canterbury Tales. How far removed from modern English is it? How much do they understand without effort?