ELT throughout the world is supposed to be teaching of English as spoken by different people living in the countries on three continents: Great Britain in Europe, the USA and Canada in America, and far to the East – Australia.

Time and distance have brought about considerable changes in the variants and dialects of the English language in comparison with its essential stem, British English. Very rarely, if at all, the teaching materials and methodology strategies are consistent in giving students the relevant information, though the differencies between the variants of the English language are there.

The American variant of the English language has a well-worked-out and profound theory to prove its existence based on a system of phonological, grammatical, lexical and semantic peculiarities (1). Dictionaries include “American English” and “Americanism” into their stock of words. “American English – English as spoken in the United States. Americanism – a word or phrase originating in or peculiar to American English. One kind of  Americanism consists of words or expressions used only in American English, and not in British or any other variety of English. Some of these  are Chicano, hero, sandwich, get to first base. The other kind are words that originated in American English and have spread to other branches of English. Examples are muskrat, gooey, typewriter, escalate (2).

Lists of americanisms sometimes find their way to the classrooms to accompany English language textbooks on the initiative of an English teacher who appears to be interested in the words. But you may still face a gap in the system of presenting the variations in question.

The material presented in this article may be looked upon as an attempt to work out a strategy of consistently introducing the variations between American English and British English into the teaching material offered to students. The level is that of upper-intermediate, the material is meant for conversational classes with second-year students of the English Department, St.Petersburg State University. The topic to learn is Post office. To follow the tradition, the topic presentation includes texts and dialogues on the topic, notes on the texts and the vocabulary list to complement the texts and dialogues. Texts and dialogues are hardly ever relevant to one variant of English only. Consequently, the differences between American English and British English may get due attention in the notes on the texts and in the vocabulary list that sums up the presentation of the topic.

Here follow the texts and dialogues on the topic Post office with tasks attached to them.

Read text 1 and specify the operations carried out by the world’s postal service.

The postal services of the world combine to make a planet-sized brain of stupendous complexity. Most of the world’s 4000  million people could if they wished communicate with almost anyone else by post within a few days. The quantity of mail handled by the world’s 654 000 post offices is staggering. On any one day, almost 1000 million items pass through the international postal system.

To shift a letter physically (rather than communicating it electronically) is a slow-motion, labor intensive operation that is a constant challenge to the millions who work for the 169 member-states of the World Postal Union.

Every item posted becomes part of this epic business. Imagine, for instance, that Pierre, a young French engineer newly assigned to Peace River, Alberta, in Canada, writes a letter to his grandmother who lives near Nice in the south of France.

In Peace River Pierre posts his letter on Monday morning, giving news of his safe arrival to do geological research. After collection that afternoon, the letter joins a few thousand others in the local post office. The postal workers separate the local mail from letters going to other parts of Canada. They also sort international letters into two bundles, one for shipment west across the Pacific, the other for all points east, including Europe. By evening the bundles, minus Peace River’s local mail, are
travelling by truck 100 miles south-west to the larger town of Grand Prairie.

Here the two international bundles join other similar bundles from nearby towns. Next morning, Tuesday, the international mail is taken to the airport. At this point, the two batches go separate ways – the transpacific bags flying west to Vancouver and the others east to Toronto, where they arrive late on Tuesday.

In Toronto, the letters are sorted by country, and in some cases by area within a country. The process takes most  of Wednesday and Thursday, and Pierre’s letter joins the 730lb (330kg) pile of mail destined for France.

On Thursday evening, international flight from Toronto is carrying the letter to Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, where it arrives early on Friday morning.

Letters from Canada are dispatched from the airport to Paris, where they merge with the 50 million objects handled daily by the country’s mechanized system. The post code for Pierre’s grandmother’s house is read by the coding machine which adds a bar code indicating where the letter will be finally distributed from. The machine deals with 40 000 letters an hour.

A second machine sorts the letters into bundles corresponding to the departments – the French equivalent of counties or states. A conveyor belt carries them from the machine to bags, which are carried by more conveyor belts to the trucks and trains which, along with planes, fan out across the country with their 3000 tons of mail. The post office uses an Airbus to carry mail to Marseilles and Nice, and Pierre's letter is aboard the Friday afternoon flight.

Overnight in Nice, the same collecting and sorting operation is carried out, but in  reverse. The sorting depot divides the mail into sub-zones for local distribution. Early on Saturday morning, a van carries the mail from the sorting depot to the post office.

The post office puts Pierre’s letter into one of the nation’s 70 000 postal rounds, and his grandmother reads his news over her morning coffee on the sixth day of its journey from Peace River.

That, at least, is how it would work in an ideal world. Inevitably, there are complications. Like weekends and holidays. And ton upon ton of ungainly parcels and illegible envelopes. And Christmas rushes. And breakdowns. And strikes. Though such factors often combine to force delays, every delivery is a minor tribute to human ingenuity and cooperation.

Read text 2 and specify the changes that the invention of the stamp brought about.

If you had been a stamp collector at the beginning of the 1840s, you’d have had no problem in getting an example of every different stamp in the world. After all, there were only two! For 1840 was the year the postage stamp was invented. The Penny Black issued in May that year was the world's very first adhesive postage stamp and its introduction completely changed the way people sent letters. For the first time it was possible to send a letter cheaply from one end of the country to the other for a standard pre-paid charge.

Nowadays stamps are so much a part of everyday lives that it’s difficult to imagine what the postal system was like before they were invented. In Britain, for example, letters were charged according to the number of pages and by the distance they had to travel, and the postage was paid by the person who received the letter rather than the person who sent it. The cost was high and the service slow. Letters were generally carried by postmen on horseback, or by mail-coaches which took several days to travel a few hundred miles. By the 1830s, Britain was already beginning a time of rapid growth in both trade and population. Mechanical inventions such as the railways were about to revolutionize transport, so an entirely new postal system was clearly necessary for the future.

Major changes were proposed by a British businessman, Rowland Hill. One was that letters should be charged by weight, not distance. Another was the use of prepaid letter sheets and envelopes. Almost as an afterthought he suggested the possible use of a small label displaying an official stamp which people could stick on their letters to show they had paid in advance. That sticky label was transformed into the Penny Black, and the postage stamp was born. The Penny Black proved to be highly successful from the start. It was so popular, in fact, that the prepaid letter sheets and envelopes – which Hill preferred – were soon withdrawn. Despite its success, the Penny Black had a very short life. It was soon found that the postmark didn’t show up very well on a black stamp, so it was replaced by the Penny Red in 1841.

The postage stamp idea was so simple and clever that other countries soon adopted it. Brazil was the first to do so in 1843, and within 10 years stamps were in use in most countries in the world. The hobby of stamp collecting started about the same time. Because it was the world’s first stamp, the Penny Black is usually imagined to be very rare or expensive. In fact, it’s neither. Such was the success of the new system that 68 million Penny Blacks were sold in 1840 alone and today you can buy one for around ? 150.

Note: as well as the main post offices in town centres, there are numerous sub-post offices in suburbs and villages. These are often inside grocers’ shops or general stores. Post offices also offer a form of banking service known as the “Post Office Savings Bank”. This is useful, as money may be withdrawn from any post office in the U.K. on production of a special savings book. One way of sending money through the post inside the U.K. is to buy postal orders which may be cashed at any of the post offices in the country. Registered envelopes for valuable items such as money and passports are also on sale.

1.
A. What’s the postage on these letters to Thailand, please?
B. I’ll have to check. Do you need anything else?
A. Yes. A 3p stamp, please.
B. That’ll be 85p in all.

2.
A. Could you tell me how much this parcel to France is?
B. I think I’d better look that up. Was there anything else?
A. Yes. A postal order for 25p and an air letter form.
B. 87p, please.

3.
A. How much is this greetings telegram  to Germany, please?
B. I’ll just make sure. Anything else?
A. Yes. Half a dozen air mail labels and a book of stamps.
B. 75p exactly, please.

4.
A. What’s the surcharge on this express letter, please?
B. I’ll have a look. Did you want anything else?
A. Yes. While I’m about it , I’ll have a large registered envelope.
B. That comes to 90p.

The strategy that aims at teaching students the variations of American and British English offers introducing consistent comments on the items of the vocabulary that are used especially in British English or especially in American English, or exclusively in British or American English. The source of the information to trust may be a reliable dictionary rather than someone’s individual experience that might appear to be locally and socially restricted or oriented. In the notes and vocabulary list compiled for the topic presentation in question the relevant information comes from Longman Dictionary of English Language and Culture.

The following items in the notes below are of major importance as presenting the variations between American English (AmE) and British English (BrE): post, to post, post office, General Post Office, recorded delivery, post code, postman.

In the vocabulary list the same refers to: postbox, pillar-box, letter-box, postal order, money order, self-addressed envelope, frank an envelope, franking machine, registered post, first-/second-class letter, by return, telegram, poste restante.
 

Notes on the texts

post  (especially BrE), mail (especially AmE) (noun) – 1) the official system for carrying letters, parcels, etc., from the sender to the receiver: I sent the parcel by post. | My reply is in the post and you will probably receive it tomorrow. | The parcel got lost in the post. 2) (a single official collection or delivery of ) letters, parcels, etc., sent by this means: Has the post arrived? | A letter has come for you in the second post. (= the second delivery of the day) | Has any post come for me today?3) an official place, box, etc., where stamped letters are left for sending: I’ve just taken her birthday card down to the post. Post is the more usual word in British English except in certain combinations such as airmail, mailbag, mailtrain, Royal Mail (the official name of the part of the post office which deals with delivering letters, parcels, and selling stamps).
to post (esp. BrE), to mail (esp. AmE) – to send (a letter, parcel, etc.) by post; Could you post this letter for me, please? | I posted it (to you) on Friday. | Did you post John the book?
post smth off, send smth off – to post a letter, parcel, message, etc (the perfective aspect is emphasized): I must post off all my Christmas cards this week.
postal – connected with the public letter service: postal system, service, district, worker.
post office – a building, office, shop, etc., which sells stamps, deals with the post, and does certain other governmental business, such as (in Britain) selling television licences and paying pensions.
General Post Office (GPO) – 1) the government organization responsible for the post in Britain (old-fashioned); 2) the main post office in a town.
collection – the emptying of a letterbox by a postman: What time is the next collection? | first/last collection | two collections a day. The corresponding verb is to collect.
delivery – the act of giving post to someone, or the things taken of given: the next postal delivery is at 2  o’clock. The corresponding verb is to deliver.
recorded delivery (BrE), certified mail (AmE) – a method of sending mail by which one can get official proof that it has been delivered: I sent it (by) recorded delivery.
post code (BrE), zip code (AmE) – a group of letters and/or numbers that mean a particular small area, and can be added to a postal address so that the letter, etc. can be delivered more quickly. In Britain it is a combination of six letters and figures written at the end of the address: London W18 2AG. US zip code consists of numbers only: Arlington, TX 76013-2934.
sorting office – a part of a post office where letters are separated into different groups according to where they are being sent to.
postage – the money charged for carrying a letter, parcel, etc. by post: Please enclose £5.50 plus 99p postage. | They’ll send you the books if you pay (for) the postage.
(postage) stamp: a 20-cent stamp | a 1/2/3 p stamp | a book of stamps | to stick a stamp on (an envelope, etc.) or to stamp (an envelope, etc.) | stamp value.
postman (esp. BrE), mailman (esp. AmE) – a person whose job is to collect and deliver letters, parcels, etc. (but not newspapers, unless these are sent by post).
postmark – an official mark made on a letter, parcel, etc., usually over the stamp, showing when and from where it is sent. The corresponding verb is to postmark (usually used in the Passive voice): The parcel was postmarked Brighton.
 

postbox (BrE),  mailbox (AmE) – an official metal box in a public place, fixed to the ground or on a wall, into which people can put letters to be collected and sent by post.
posting box – a box for posting letters in a post office.
pillar-box – (in Britain) a large tube-shaped type of postbox that stands in the street and is usually painted red.
letter-box – a narrow opening in a front door, or at the entrance to a building; a box for receiving things delivered, especially letters brought by the postman: Another bill dropped through the letter-box. Note: letter boxes are much more common in Britain than the US, where it is more usual to have a mailbox somewhere near your front door which is an actual box with a closing lid. In Britain anyone may put anything through a letterbox, in the US it is illegal for anyone except the Postal Service to use your mailbox and only mail that carries your name and address may be delivered  there.
PO Box – a numbered box in a post office, to which someone’s mail can be sent and from which they can collect it: For further details, write to P.O. Box 179.
postal order – (in Britain) an official paper of a particular value which can be sent by post. The receiver can change it for money of the same value (cash it) at a post office: a 50p postal order, a £1/£2/£3 postal order, a postal order for £2.50.
money order – (both BrE and AmE) an official paper of a stated value which is bought from a post office, bank, etc., and sent to someone instead of money. In Britain this system is used for larger sums of money than a postal order. Note: Postal orders and money orders are not very widely used nowadays.  Most people prefer to send money by cheque or credit card.
postcard – a card of a fixed size for sending messages by post without an envelope. There are plain and picture postcards. The word “postcard” may be used for “plain postcard” and “picture postcard”. Note: birthday cards, Christmas cards and other such cards are not “postcards” but “greeting cards”.
stamped envelope/postcard
Note: English people rarely buy these. They prefer to buy writing-pads and packets of matching envelopes. Only plain stamped postcards (not picture postcards) are sold. Greeting cards are sold with envelopes, mostly plain.
picture postcard – a card with a picture or photograph on one side.Note: People on holiday often send postcards to friends and to people in their family who are not on holiday. The words “Wish  you were here” are often mentioned  in jokes as being a typical thing to write on a postcard.
stamped addressed envelope (s.a.e., S.A.E.) – a stamped envelope with the sender’s address, enclosed, for example,  with a letter asking for information. One often has to send an s.a.e. to get a reply from e.g. an advertiser.
self-addressed envelope (s.a.e., S.A.E., - BrE); (SASE  - AmE) – an envelope on which one writes one’s own address and stamps for it to be posted to one: Send $5 and a large SASE to receive our hamburger recipe book.
frank an envelope, letter, etc. (BrE) – put it through a machine which prints the amount paid for postage, instead of stamps: Companies that send out a lot of letters save time by using a franking machine .
franking machine (BrE), postage meter (AmE) – a machine which puts a mark on letters and packages to show that postage has been paid and which is used mostly by businesses
franked envelope, letter
airmail; send smth. (letter, parcel, book) (by) airmail: How much would it cost to send it airmail?
surface mail – travelling by land and sea: Surface mail takes much longer than airmail. \ send smth. by surface mail.
air(mail) letter – often a special stamped form which is folded and stuck and sent without a separate envelope.
register a letter – to send in a special registered envelope.
registered post (BrE), registered mail (AmE) – a postal service which for an additional charge protects the sender of a valuable letter or parcel against loss; send smth. (letter, parcel, bookpost) registered.
give a receipt, get a receipt
sign for (a registered letter)
first-/second-class letter (in Britain only). Note: the postage on first-class letters is higher but the P.O. guarantees  delivery next day.
by return (of post) (especially BrE) – by the next post: Please let us know your answer by return.
c/o  - abbreviation for “care of”; (especially used  when writing addresses) to be held or looked after by: Send it to John Hammond c/o Dorothy Smith.
telegram (BrE), wire (AmE),  greetings telegram, telegram form. Note 1: Telegrams are hardly ever sent in Britain now, as a first-class letter will get there the next day, and if the matter is urgent, people usually telephone. Note 2: In Britain, when a person is one hundred years old they receive a telegram from the Queen congratulating them.
parcel; weigh, wrap a parcel; have a parcel weighed, wrapped. Note: Parcels in Britain can be registered buy they are not separately insured.
weight limit: There  is ten pound weight limit.
address a letter, parcel, etc.
addressee (used in official language only, like most other words in –ee)
sender; note: the sender’s name and address is not usually written on letters in Britain. On envelopes sent abroad it is often written on the back flap.
clerk (in a post office).
poste restante (BrE), general delivery (AmE) – a post office department to which letters for a traveller can be sent and where they will be kept until the person collects them. Note: It is hardly ever used in Britain.
ID card – an identify card.
forward mail – to send forward or pass on (letters, parcels, etc.) to a new address: When we moved, we asked the people who took our old house to forward all our mail to our new address. | The man who left yesterday didn’t leave a forwarding address, so I don’t know where to send this letter that’s come for him.
Note: “Please forward” is usually written on the envelope if you think the person has moved or is away from home.
How long does a letter take to… (eg. France)?
How much does it cost to send a … to … (eg. to send a letter to Canada). What’s the postage on a …. to …?
These are synonymous phrases.
e-mail
fax, fax machine

If one applies the above strategy to all the topics that are included in the programme, it will construct a system of introducing  variations of the English language into the teaching material that may be of use to learners of English.

P.S. The author expresses her thanks to Jane Povey and Lyudmila Alexandrovna Chernobrovkina, teachers of the English Department, who contributed to collecting the material on the topic “Post Office”.
 

References
1.Øâåéöåð À.Ä. Ëèòåðàòóðíûé àíãëèéñêèé ÿçûê â ÑØÀ è Àíãëèè. Ì.., 1971, ñ.191.
2.The American Heritage School Dictionary. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1977, p.29.  See also: Longman Dictionary of English Language and Culture. Harlow, 1992, p.33.