🕵️ Phase 3 - Investigation
🕵️ Research
⏱ 5 minutes
Task 4 - Group A: Language Detective
Languages constantly influence each other. When people travel, trade and communicate, words travel too. Investigation question: how can the same word travel across different countries and cultures?
Key questions to explore - tap to open each one
1
What are cognates and loanwords?
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A loanword is a word borrowed from one language into another - "taxi" came from the German word "Taxameter." A cognate is a word that shares an origin across languages, like "hospital" (English) and "hôpital" (French). Both show how languages are connected through history.
2
Why do words travel between languages?
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Words spread when people trade, travel, or communicate across borders. "Chocolate" came from the Nahuatl language of Mexico. "Internet" spread worldwide as the technology itself spread. Languages are living systems that grow through contact with each other.
3
Starter words already found
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Your investigation table is pre-loaded with 5 starter words already known to travel across many languages: telephone, hotel, internet, taxi, chocolate. Your job now is to find 3 more words that appear - almost unchanged - in several different languages.
📞 telephone
🏨 hotel
🌐 internet
🚕 taxi
🍫 chocolate
Your deliverable
Group A deliverable
Add 3 more words that travel across languages, with a language or origin note.
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3
✅ Findings submitted - visible to the whole class.
The Discovery Wall
WORDS THAT TRAVEL · SHARED CLASS FINDINGS
Bridge to Group B
"Maybe the most important thing about language is not what we say… but what others understand."
What happens in Task 4
A 5-minute Phase 3 - Investigation activity as "Group A - The Connectors." Students open three research prompts about cognates and loanwords, then add 3 additional words known to travel across languages, posting them to a shared Discovery Wall.
🎯 Learning objectives
Investigate how languages share words, origins and historical connections. Discover that languages are connected through history, culture and human interaction - not isolated systems.
♿ SEN Adaptations
- Colour-coded word cards, one colour per language, available on request
- Voice input accepted for all three word fields
- Peer support: pairs work together within the group
🖨️ No-Tech Format
- Printed word cards (laminated) - groups sort and compare words manually
- Investigation table on a paper worksheet
- Findings displayed on paper posters with arrows drawn between languages