In November, I decided to do a presentation for my older students about this Thanksgiving. This is a holiday that is not at all celebrated in France, so the students found it very interesting and exciting as it was completely new to them! The presentation had information about both Canadian and American Thanksgiving, including the different celebration dates, histories, and traditions.

As I showed each slide of the presentation, I asked a student to read it aloud and then explain what it meant. This helped the students practice their speaking skills, as well as learn new vocabulary.

After the presentation, we learned the vocabulary of the food we traditionally eat during Thanksgiving and played some games using this new vocabulary. We also discussed the word « thankful », as it is not a word that translates into French. After doing my best to explain to the students what it meant, we had a discussion about what being « thankful » means to them, and about what they are thankful for. During this, I wrote the different things they were saying in English on the board, such as « family », « friends », « education », and « freedom ».

I gave each of the students a worksheet like the one below, and asked them to fill it out with words and pictures of things they were thankful for, either by using the words we had written on the board or by asking me to translate new ones.

Overall, this activity was very interesting for the students because it allowed them to learn something entirely new about Anglophone culture, and a bunch of new vocabulary!