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Tag: traditions

ES FA22 INT/ADV Holidays

Language Resident: Franco Rivas Quiroz

Level: Intermediate/Advanced

Class theme/topic discussed: Holidays

Goal of the class:

Students will be able to:

  • Discuss the differences of celebrations among cultures in latin america and the US.
  • Describe a celebration that is relevant for them using frequency adverbs such as: generalmente, a menudo, la mayoría de las veces, casi nunca, siempre.

Class structure:

Warm up:

Students are asked to think about a good/funny/interesting/bad memory they had related to a holiday and share it to the class. 

Activity:

The instructor shows some images/videos related to holidays that are celebrated in Chile  (fiestas patrias, La tirana, Semana santa, minga etc) and then other celebrations of Latin America (Inti raymi, fiesta de las flores, carnaval de barranquilla, etc). Students see images of celebrations of other countries in Latin America and ask questions about what happens in each celebration.

Students are asked to talk about the most common holidays in their country, the differences between those and the ones that were shown to them and their favorite celebrities. They will do that in pairs or groups of three, and then share to the rest of the class. 

¿Qué celebración es?: Each students is given 3 pieces of paper: an image, the description of a celebration and the name of one. Those pieces don’t match, so they have to go around walking in the room and they talk to their classmates to negotiate and exchange them, so as to match each image with the right name of celebration and its description. The only rule is that they can’t show the images or the descriptions, but they have to describe them with their own words. 

Wrap up:

Students discuss whether holidays are important and whether there is something that they would change to any of the ones that they have talked about.

Resources used: Powerpoint presentation. 

Reflection: What worked/did not work? How can it be improved?

Conversations about this topic with this class were very reflexive and there was a lot to talk about. Since they come from different cultural backgrounds, there were many things that they did, others that they did differently and students were interested to know more about their classmates’ celebrations. 

The matching images to celebration was a bit challenging but it helped students use their own words to describe celebration. They ended up learning a lot about traditions without being explicitly taught about them.

At the end of the class, there was a little bit of a not-planned debate on whether holidays were important,  since one of the participants raised the point that even though it was nice to have them, we could still live without them. At first it was going great, but then the conversation got a little bit intense among them. It was time to go anyway, so I basically thanked them for their great opinions and finished the class.

FR F21 INT – La Fête (celebrations)

Theme/topic: La fête –Parties/celebrations in France –This class is designed to last for two sessions

Warm-up: What are some celebrations/French holidays you know or have heard of before?

  • Quick cultural overview of the most important French Holidays
  • Video screening of a typical French holiday – le 1er Avril – On this day it is customary for a lot of French people to prank others and/or stick a paper fish on their back
  • Provide a few expressions in French for specific holidays – New Year, Christmas, etc. –
  • project pictures of objects and actions related to either one important holiday – Christmas, etc.- or Birthdays. Ask the class if they can associate what they see on the pictures with any words they know. Then provide them the vocabulary
  • Example – Birthdays:
  • Activity 1:
  • Create groups: Put the students in pairs or groups of 3/4
  • The students will have first to individually brainstorm for 5 minutes on the best birthday they had had so far and their best birthday memories. They can jot down some notes and then share them with the rest of their group
  • The instructor can also add more questions to ask them in order to make them practice expressing themselves on the topic in relation to their own experience using the past tense and the vocabulary provided beforehand: Quel est l’anniversaire dont vous vous souvenez le plus? (What is your best birthday experience?), Quels sont vos meilleurs souvenirs d’anniversaire ? (What are your best birthday memories?)
  • Activity 2: keeping the same groups, ask them to discuss their favorite celebration in their home country/region/where they’re from and tell their group about it and why they like it specifically. They can list various elements -activities, actions, foods, costumes, traditions, music, etc.- they associate with that particular celebration/holiday -.
  • Before starting the activity, give an example to guide them: je préfère mon anniversaire parce que ma famille et mes amis m’offrent des cadeaux / parce que il y a un gâteau d’anniversaire OR: ma fête préférée est mon anniversaire parce que…
  • I Personally loved how responsive and engaged into the conversation the students were. They put a lot of work in writing about their best birthday’s memories and then when I put them into groups to share what they had written with their classmates, they couldn’t stop talking, and I realized how good their French speaking skills were when they were really into something/interesting into a certain topic, especially when it concerns sharing a personal, intimate story.09/22-Warm-up:For the second session of this class on Celebrations/Holidays, I started by making them brainstorm on French words they associated with celebrations, celebrating and partying. I wrote on the board the words they gave me and tried to help them find out new ones by mimicking,for instance,‘blowing candles’, ‘opening a present’, ‘baking a cake’, etc. I didthat to introduce some input-mainly vocabulary and expressions-related to birthdays and other parties/celebratory events, such as graduation for instance, at the beginning of the class -I gave them ahandout with vocabulary including the vocabulary we had mentioned during the brainstorming. I gavethem 5 minutes to read it through and ask me questions if they neededto.It helped them a lot to complete serenely the main activity (organize your own party in groups)-I showed them pictures and asked them what the persons on the pictures were doing –blowing candles, baking a cake, opening a present, etc.-and what was on the pictures -some food/drinks you know of?–Main Activity:I dedicated the second part of the class (30 minutes) to the main activity. In groups of 3-4 they had to organize theirown party/celebrationand then present them to the class -They presented/describedtheir party to the rest of the class. I really liked that all members of the groups participated both in giving ideas for the party, and at the end, they all described an aspect/element of the party they’d organized together-To conclude the class,I asked them to give me 3 words they learnt today in relation to parties/celebrations

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