1. Teaching Objectives
2. Video Watching: The Boats That Built Britain
3. Background Information of British merchant navy and the related materials
Answer the following questions according to the video “The Boats That Built Britain”.
1. What is the function of the sea surrounding Britain?
2. What kind of men did Britain need?
3. What was needed to take them to go to the unknown?
Key:
1. To protect Britain from attack.
2. Brave men, willing to venture out into the unknown.
3. Boats.
Discussion: What are the reasons for the decline of British Empire?
Key:
Though Britain and the empire emerged victorious from the Second World War, the effects of the conflict were profound, both at home and abroad. Much of Europe, a continent that had dominated the world for several centuries, was in ruins, and host to the armies of the United States and the Soviet Union, who now held the balance of global power. Britain was left essentially bankrupt, with insolvency only averted in 1946 after the negotiation of a $US 4.33 billion loan (US$56 billion in 2012) from the United States, the last installment of which was repaid in 2006. At the same time, anti-colonial movements were on the rise in the colonies of European nations. The situation was complicated further by the increasing Cold War rivalry of the United States and the Soviet Union. In principle, both nations were opposed to European colonialism.
In practice, however, American Anti-communism prevailed over anti-imperialism, and therefore the United States supported the continued existence of the British Empire to keep Communist expansion in check. The “wind of change” ultimately meant that the British Empire’s days were numbered, and on the whole, Britain adopted a policy of peaceful disengagement from its colonies once stable, non-Communist governments were available to transfer power to. This was in contrast to other European powers such as France and Portugal, which waged costly and ultimately unsuccessful wars to keep their empires intact. Between 1945 and 1965, the number of people under British rule outside the UK itself fell from 700 million to five million, three million of whom were in Hong Kong.
1. British Empire
链接：
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire
2. Britain and Immigration
链接：
http://www.kekenet.com/menu/201411/342124.shtml
