I am from Coimbra, Portugal, and am currently teaching in a school in Soure, about 30 km away from Coimbra. I have been a teacher of English for over 20 years and have already taught different levels and age groups. After all this time I can say I love working with adult groups because there are no coursebooks and I can create my own resources.
I am an avid reader, a blogger and very curious about free tools and their implementation in the classroom.
Prior to this blogpost, I've already left here, here and here a lot of info as well as loads of resources for teachers with different age groups and levels. This year, and because I'm teaching adult beginners' courses, I felt I had to prepare something based on visuals, yes, but not childish...
Observed annually on the fourth Thursday of November, Thanksgiving is one of the most celebrated holidays in the US. As it is so often broadcast in the news, even the president pardoning a turkey, I think we can and should use the holiday as a teaching moment: an interesting way of bringing in some cultural content, some history, the concepts of sharing and gratitude, of being thankful for something, ...
Here is the PPt presentation I'll be showing next Thursday:
I also browsed a bit, trying to find some books and reading for and about Thanksgiving, but the truth is that I basically found children's books. Anyway, here they go:
You can find some info here
Though Thanksgiving is not celebrated in Portugal, as teachers / educators, we can always take advantage of raising cultural awareness to teach learners to be grateful for who/what they are and what they have, especially now that we are facing harder times, and gratitude and generosity should be a constant. More: both the Pilgrims and the Native Americans worked together in an environmentally sustainable way and celebrated their plentiful crop giving thanks; nowadays, in a time of environmental concerns (for most, at least), we should question ourselves about our dependence on the earth as a food source - if we destroy it, what and how will we eat???
Soooooooooooo, whoever and wherever you are, do give THANKS.
What is Thanksgiving?
On the fourth Thursday in November, in houses around the United States, families get together for a feast, or a large meal. The first Thanksgiving
On December 11, 1620, a group of 102 people called the Pilgrims arrived in the USA in the Mayflower. They didn't know much about the territory and their first winter was devastating.
By the beginning of the following fall, they had lost 46 people because of cold, hunger and disease. However, the harvest of 1621 was a generous one and, to commemorate it, the remaining colonists decided to celebrate with a feast with the Wampanoag Indians, who had helped them to survive their first year by teaching the Pilgrims to plant corn, to hunt, and to fish. The feast lasted three days and some of the foods they ate on their first "Thanksgiving" were deer, fish, berries, venison, corn and other vegetables. How Thanksgiving became a national holiday
Only many years later did Thanksgiving become a national holiday due to a woman named Sarah Hale. For forty years Sarah Josepha Hale wrote to each president and asked for a holiday of Thanksgiving. At last she was successful when in 1863 President Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a holiday. On November 26, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs legislation making Thanksgiving Day the fourth Thursday of each November. Modern Thanksgiving
Nowadays Thanksgiving celebration only lasts one day and people usually spend this time with their families and friends. Unlike in the past, modern Thanksgiving meals include turkey (which has become a symbol of this date), sweet potatoes, cranberries and pumpkin pie. The idea of Thanksgiving, though, is very much the same: it is a time to give thanks for the many blessings we have.
But for a clearer idea, let's have a look at this great Thanksgiving video from http://www.history.com/topics/thanksgiving/videos#history-of-the-thanksgiving-holiday Thanksgiving is indeed one of the most important celebrations in the USA and usually one of the best dinner parties of the year - that's also why so much stuff can be found on the Internet. If you are looking for some more infos / data / materials, make sure to check out the following links: http://www.ocls.info/Virtual/galleries/Holidays/thanksgiving.asp?search=s&printable=yes http://712educators.about.com/cs/thanksgiving/a/thanksgiving.htm (Thanksgiving across the curriculum) http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/0,28757,1862503,00.html (top ten things you didn't know about Thanksgiving) http://www.scholastic.com/scholastic_thanksgiving/ (great webquest and provides not only links but also audio support) http://www.apples4theteacher.com/holidays/thanksgiving/ (here you can lead your sts to create their own acrostic poem or place words in alphabetical order; there are also the traditional word jumbles, word searches or simply coloring pages ;) http://holidays.kaboose.com/thanks-printables.html and / or http://bogglesworldesl.com/thanksgiving_worksheets.htm (as usual, here you'll find mazes, word puzzles,...)
Inevitable are the menus and special recipes for this day - have a look at these by world renowned chef Jamie Oliver at http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/favourites/thanksgiving-recipes. Talking about food... if you are a vegetarian or concerned about the fact that more than 45 million turkeys are cooked and eaten in the US at Thanksgiving, check out this link http://www.animalacres.org/events/pre_thank_2010.html
and... do watch this clip carefully
Finally... have a great Thanksgiving Day - wherever you are :))))
