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Did you know … ?
Elicit or explain that another difference is that full stop is British 
English; period is the US equivalent.
7–9 Students can discuss their views in pairs or small groups, 
and then compare their ideas with those of other pairs/
groups in a whole-class discussion.
Focus on … US English
Get students to do the exercises. Ask students if they know any 
other examples of US English. You could ask them to research 
this before the next lesson. For example, UK English words such 
as travelling, cancelled are spelled traveling, canceled in US 
English; words such as metre, centre are spelled meter, center 
in US English. In addition, you can write spelled or spelt, burned 
or burnt in UK English, but these words are normally regular (-
ed
endings) in US English. In the UK people say lift, pavement, 
tap, have a bath/break/holiday/shower
and at the weekend; 
Americans say elevator, sidewalk, faucet, take a bath/break/
holiday/shower
and on the weekend. In terms of grammar, the 
past participle of get is gotten in US English (got in UK English), 
and American speakers can use either the present perfect 
(Where’s my pen? I’ve left it at home) or past simple (Where’s 
my pen? I left it at home
) whereas a speaker in the UK would 
use only the present perfect for an action in the past with a 
result now.
More activities
If you are teaching a multilingual group, students could give a 
short talk about their country. Perhaps one student could give 
their talk each day. (Students who are from the same country 
could work together but research different aspects of their 
country.)
Students can look up Contemporary America on the Internet. 
Tell them that it is published by Palgrave – this should help 
them to locate it.