For the 1-4th graders, I had them make hand turkeys or turkeys out of toilet paper rolls and write on their feathers what they were thankful for this year. It was really adorable. The kids all were so excited to bring a toilet paper roll from home! :) My favorite teacher helped me explain the story of Thanksgiving to all the 6-9 year olds by having the kids pretend they were the Pilgrims in a big boat. :) It was overall a huge success! When I had them write what they were grateful for, a few of the little kids wrote, "I'm thankful for the Indians for giving us food." SO. ADORABLE!
Then the teachers asked me to teach the high schoolers about Thanksgiving, as well. I figured they already had to know some things about it, and it certainly wouldn't take me 20 minutes to explain the history of it in words they could understand all while repeating each section of the story in twenty different ways. But I obeyed and taught them about it - for all of five minutes.
"So basically we wake up. We watch the Macy's Day Parade. Then we cook. Then we eat lots of food - including turkey and mashed potatoes and stuff. Then, we go to sleep - because we ate a lot and drank a lot. Then we watch football and have dessert. Then we eat more a little later."
They all nodded their heads.
"The first Thanksgiving was in 1621. The year before, over 100 people from England came to America in a boat called the Mayflower. These people were called 'Pilgrims.' When they arrived in Massachusetts that November, they were hungry and did not know much about planting food in the New World. Half of them died the first winter. Eventually, Native American Indians came along and helped the Pilgrims, and within a year they had a large amount of food and had a three day feast to celebrate. In all honesty, the tradition of a harvest feast was nothing new, as it had been a pagan tradition that had dated back hundreds - if not thousands - of years. All did not end well, as the Indians did not survive much longer, themselves."
To be honest, I didn't really know any details about Thanksgiving until Monday morning, when I got on the computer and started researching it so I could tell my 1st graders all about it without giving them incorrect information. >_< I told my high schoolers this and they laughed. I did, too. It takes coming to a foreign country to start learning about my own! I feel like this is actually not that strange... when you're in your own language and culture, you don't think about these things.
After my five minute explanation was done, I switched to a topic I knew they'd find far more facinating: Black Friday.
As I guessed, they loved it.
I told them all about it, what it was like and told them about my most successful Black Friday experience with my grandma back in 2007 (omg that sounds soooo long ago, but it doesn't feel like it was very long ago AT ALL!). I pulled up a video of shoppers at Target on a Black Friday a few years ago as they ran into the store when it opened at 4 am, screaming and hollering. I also pulled up the Black Friday 2012 deals. They were speechless! They'd never heard of such a thing! At first I thought they were judging me and my culture. "Oh those Americans. How materialistic can you get!?" And so I asked them how they thought something like this would go over in Spain.
"Oh, it'd never work out."
I asked them why not, a little upset by their answer.
"Because we're not as nice here in Spain! Way more people would get injured. People would go crazy. They'd love it. They'd push people around and tons of people would have to go to the hospital. The stores here just aren't big enough for that sort of thing, and people aren't level-headed enough, nor do they have enough manners!"
Haha! They all then said they wondered if they'd have enough time if they caught a plane RIGHT after school to get to America for the sales! Ha! :) They couldn't believe how cheap iPads and iPhones were going to be - plus all the video games and other electronics. They were totally into it. :) WIN!
Along with it, I showed them some videos from the Macy's Day Parade and an eight minute clip from the best moments from "Friends" during their Thanksgiving Day episodes. :) 'Cause I'm awesome like that!
Sometimes, just sometimes, I feel like I'm a pretty cool teacher. Who else would have taken an hour to teach high school kids about Black Friday? Who else would have pulled up crazy Youtube videos and drawn out a sample Black Friday Strategy Map for them? Who else would have pulled up the latest ads and shopped through them with the students? Who else would have googled "Wal-mart shoppers" and shown them the type of people who sometimes frequent Wal-mart and why it has such a funny/awful reputation (kids here have never heard of Wal-mart - SO WEIRD!!).
I'm not sure how much ENGLISH I'm teaching these kids, per-say. We don't go over grammar, verb tenses. I don't generally correct them when they talk and I don't do workbook or textbook stuff with them. I don't make them talk if they don't want to and I never test their comprehension of what I'm telling them about. But I do introduce them to some pretty culturally relavent things - things nobody else has ever (or would ever!) tell them. I'm real with them and make each class in which I'm in charge of the lesson for the day fun and like an open conversation. I'm always bubbly and excited and I tell jokes and I do little dances. I try to show them the type of things I wish my Spanish teachers would have shown me when I was in Spanish classes. I try to be the kind of native language conversation teacher I'd have loved to have when I was 16.
I guess I'm going off my own, personal philosophy that if you can get students interested in the culture of the language they're learning... if you can get them giggling and singing... if you can shock them and tell them interesting and weird things that nobody else would tell them... if you can be passionate about your own culture and the oddities that make it so cool and unique... well then maybe you can add a little motivation towards the language that they otherwise never would have had. If you can relate things to their own life and age group... if you can show them things that make America look cool... if you can talk with them like they're on your level... maybe it will make the language seem less "foreign" and more fun.
Last summer, L would tell me about her English teachers when she was younger in Romania. How they were so nice and so fun and make her really enjoy learning English. When she told me about them, I knew I wanted to be one of those teachers. One of those teachers who you look back on and say, "Wow! They really taught me some culturally relevant stuff that none of my textbooks or teachers even knew about. Knowing how to form the subjunctive versus knowing what Wal-mart is, what stereotypical Wal-mart shoppers are like and where to get the best deals on Black Friday in America? Knowing the top internet memes, the viral Youtube videos from the past few years, the newest music, the funniest TV shows, etc.? The subjunctive will not win you any friends. The other stuff? You walk up to any cool American with your cute little Spanish accent and start carry on a conversation about any of those things and you will have instantly just won yourself some friends."
XOXO
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