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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.