You can get ELT resources (further info, lesson plans, printables, posters, slideshows, recipes, graphs, crafts, colouring pictures and greeting cards) on the topic @:
Thanksgiving is celebrated today, November 28th, as always in the fourth Thursday of the month, all across the USA and Canada and precedes Black Friday, one of the busiest shopping days , mostly in the USA.
In 1621, the Plymouth colonists and Wampanoag Indians
shared an Autumn harvest feast that is acknowledged today as one of the first
Thanksgiving celebrations in the colonies. For more than two centuries, days of
thanksgiving were celebrated by individual colonies and states. It wasn't until
1863, in the midst of the Civil War, that President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed
a national Thanksgiving Day to be held each November.
In September 1620, a small ship called the Mayflower
left Plymouth, England, carrying 102 passengers - an assortment of religious
separatists seeking a new home where they could freely practice their faith and
other individuals lured by the promise of prosperity and land ownership in the
New World. After a treacherous and uncomfortable crossing that lasted 66 days,
they dropped anchor near the tip of Cape Cod, far north of their intended
destination at the mouth of the Hudson River. A month later, the Mayflower
crossed Massachusetts Bay, where the Pilgrims, as they are now commonly known,
began the work of establishing a village at Plymouth. Throughout that first brutal winter, most of the
colonists remained on board the ship, where they suffered from exposure, scurvy
and outbreaks of contagious disease. Only half of the Mayflower’s original
passengers and crew lived to see their first New England spring. In March, the
remaining settlers moved ashore, where they received an astonishing visit from
an Abenaki Indian who greeted them in English. Several days later, he returned
with another Native American, Squanto, a member of the Pawtuxet tribe who had
been kidnapped by an English sea captain and sold into slavery before escaping
to London and returning to his homeland on an exploratory expedition. Squanto
taught the Pilgrims, weakened by malnutrition and illness, how to cultivate
corn, extract sap from maple trees, catch fish in the rivers and avoid
poisonous plants. He also helped the settlers forge an alliance with the
Wampanoag, a local tribe, which would endure for more than 50 years and
tragically remains one of the sole examples of harmony between European
colonists and Native Americans.
In November 1621, after the Pilgrims’ first corn
harvest proved successful, Governor William Bradford organized a celebratory
feast and invited a group of the fledgling colony’s Native American allies, including
the Wampanoag chief Massasoit. Now remembered as American’s “first
Thanksgiving”—although the Pilgrims themselves may not have used the term at
the time—the festival lasted for three days. While no record exists of the
historic banquet’s exact menu, the Pilgrim chronicler Edward Winslow wrote in
his journal that Governor Bradford sent four men on a “fowling” mission in
preparation for the event, and that the Wampanoag guests arrived bearing five
deer. Historians have suggested that many of the dishes were likely prepared
using traditional Native American spices and cooking methods. Because the
Pilgrims had no oven and the Mayflower’s sugar supply had dwindled by the fall
of 1621, the meal did not feature pies, cakes or other desserts, which have become
a hallmark of contemporary celebrations.
Pilgrims
held their second Thanksgiving celebration in 1623 to mark the end of a
long drought that had threatened the year’s harvest and prompted
Governor Bradford to call for a religious fast. Days of fasting and
thanksgiving on an annual or occasional basis became common practice in
other New England settlements as well. During the American Revolution, the Continental Congress designated one or more days of thanksgiving a year, and in 1789 George Washington
issued the first Thanksgiving proclamation by the national government
of the United States; in it, he called upon Americans to express their
gratitude for the happy conclusion to the country’s war of independence
and the successful ratification of the U.S. Constitution. His successors John Adams and James Madison also designated days of thanks during their presidencies. In 1817, New York
became the first of several states to officially adopt an annual
Thanksgiving holiday; each celebrated it on a different day, however,
and the American South remained largely unfamiliar with the tradition.
In 1827, the noted magazine editor and writer Sarah Josepha
Hale—author of the nursery rhyme “Mary
Had a Little Lamb”—launched a campaign to establish Thanksgiving as a
national holiday. For 36 years, she published numerous editorials and
sent scores of letters to governors, senators, presidents and other
politicians. Abraham Lincoln finally heeded her request in 1863, at the height of the Civil War,
in a proclamation entreating all Americans to ask God to “commend to
his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or
sufferers in the lamentable civil strife” and to “heal the wounds of the
nation.” He scheduled Thanksgiving for the final Thursday in November,
and it was celebrated on that day every year until 1939, when Franklin D. Roosevelt moved the holiday up a week in an attempt to spur retail sales during the Great Depression.
Roosevelt’s plan, known derisively as Franksgiving, was met with
passionate opposition, and in 1941 the president reluctantly signed a
bill making Thanksgiving the fourth Thursday in November. THANKSGIVING TRADITIONS
In
many American households, the Thanksgiving celebration has lost much of
its original religious significance; instead, it now centers on cooking
and sharing a bountiful meal with family and friends. Turkey, a
Thanksgiving staple so ubiquitous it has become all but synonymous with
the holiday, may or may not have been on offer when the Pilgrims hosted
the inaugural feast in 1621. Today, however, nearly 90 percent of
Americans eat the bird—whether roasted, baked or deep-fried—on
Thanksgiving, according to the National Turkey Federation. Other
traditional foods include stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce and
pumpkin pie. Volunteering is a common Thanksgiving Day activity, and
communities often hold food drives and host free dinners for the less
fortunate. Parades have also become an integral part of the holiday in cities and towns across the United States.
Presented by Macy’s department store since 1924, New York City’s
Thanksgiving Day parade is the largest and most famous, attracting some 2
to 3 million spectators along its 2.5-mile route and drawing an
enormous television audience. It typically features marching bands,
performers, elaborate floats conveying various celebrities and giant
balloons shaped like cartoon characters. Beginning in the
mid-20th century and perhaps even earlier, the president of the United
States has “pardoned” one or two Thanksgiving turkeys each year, sparing
the birds from slaughter and sending them to a farm for retirement. A
number of U.S. governors also perform the annual turkey pardoning
ritual. THANKSGIVING IN THE UK
Thanksgiving Day in the United Kingdom is celebrated as a harvest festival. This day is a religious honouring to convey a feeling of gratitude to God for the year's plentiful and fruitful harvest and thanking family and friends for their love and support. The day is celebrated by preparing a special meal of large roasted turkey, which is a native American species, along with cranberry sauce, stuffing, with veggies. A variety of different pies with apple, mincemeat, pumpkin and pecan form the dessert menu. Gifts are also exchanged on this day which include flowers, jewellery, baked cookies, candy and wine. Many towns and cities stage spectacular parades on this day. Many people are on the roads to enjoy the decorated floats, the costumes, the music and the heavy balloons.
You can get ELT resources (further info, lesson plans, printables, posters, slideshows, recipes, graphs, crafts, colouring pictures and greeting cards) on the topic @:
Publish your presentations as engaging talking videos!
Share your powerpoint presentations, eLearning content, business presentations and tutorials as engaging talking videos, by using high-quality and multilingual text-to-speech technology, with no need for expensive and time-consuming voice recordings.
Learn more about what SlideTalk can do for you in this slidetalk video:
Follow the three simple steps Show-Describe-Share described here below to turn your presentations into talking videos:
1. Show: upload slides
Upload and arrange your slides to build your story.
2. Describe: type texts
Type a text for each slide to tell your story and describe the image. High quality text-to-speech, with 20+ languages and 70+ voices, will convert your text into voicever speech.
3. Share: share video
The images and the audio are turned into a video automatically published on YouTube, ready to be shared with your audience, or available for download to let you choose how to share it.
Click here to learn more about the SlideTalk service.
American English is a resource center for teaching and learning about American English language and culture. The website provides a variety of engaging materials and resources for teachers' professional development and for students in the classroom. Both teachers and students will find new ways to practice English and learn more about the United States.
The Office of English Language Programs in Washington, D.C. provides academic expertise, advisory and consultative assistance, as well asmaterials and resourcesworldwide. All programs are implemented by Regional English Language Officers at American Embassies or Consulates. Programs and resources administered through their office include English materials, distance education programs, and teacher training workshops. Check back the website regularly for updates and new resources. Besides, you can create your own 'resource list', for example with your favourite articles from the English Teaching Forum.
Winter break is just around the corner! Do your students celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or Three Kings Day? Maybe they celebrate St. Lucia Day or Ramadan. December offers great opportunities for teaching about our multicultural world. Here are some fun suggestions that will keep your students engaged until winter break, suggested by Eye on Educationand byEducation World.
4. Give Your Students the Dickens Explore some of the student-friendly Dickens Web sites we found and hear from some of the teachers and Dickens fans who created them. Included: Teacher-created ideas for extending the works of Dickens.
6. Sites to See: December Holidays Don't let the December holidays disrupt the learning in your classroom. These online resources help incorporate the holidays into real learning activities -- and provide a little fun as well. Included: A dozen Web sites for Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and Christmas.
Cut out christmas trees from green paper and glue numbered stars on top of them. Students can use pom pom ornaments to decorate the trees (but only the amount the star said on each tree).
Students wrap a box (in class or at home) and write a compliment for each other student in the classroom. They then exchange compliments. Each student will have a box full of compliments to take home as a present.
