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.
"A full belly is little worth where the mind is starved"
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known by his pen name Mark Twain was born on November 30, 1835 and died about one hundred years ago, on April 21, 1910. Acclaimed as "the father of American literature", Twain became best known not only as a humorist but, above all, as the author of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884 in England, 1885, in the USA)
Image Sources: Book Covers of the first editons (wikipedia.org)
If you wish to read at least these two books (no excuses now with ebooks!!!), please click on:
Interesting would also be to know that one hundred years after his death, Mark Twain is back on the best sellers list!!! All this stir now because he insisted that his own autobiography should only be published a century after he died - as The Telegraph puts it "Mark Twain passes the ultimate writer's test - staying in print".
Some final words on this particular day... also born on the 30th November but in 1874 was Sir Winston Churchill, a British politician and statesman and widely regarded as one of the great wartime leaders; on the same day but in 1935 (seventy-five years ago) a Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic and translator, and one of the most significant literary figures of the 20th century - Fernando Pessoa - died.
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 :))))
