Thanksgiving: una experiencia integradora y de

sensibilización hacia la lengua extranjera en educación primaria.

"The First Thanksgiving", painting by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris (1863-1930)

Si eres sensible a una situación, quieres comprenderla a fondo. Cuando la

comprendes quieres saber más. La voluntad de saber es la que te motiva y esa

motivación abre para ti la puerta del aprendizaje.

Una de las cuestiones que más preocupa a los docentes especialistas en lengua

extranjera, es cómo motivar a los alumnos para que interioricen una lengua distinta a

la suya, inmersa en una cultura también diferente en cuanto a costumbres,

sentimientos, tradiciones… Al principio no es fácil, por eso, la mejor forma de hacerlo

es empezando desde infantil, paulatinamente, sin esperar ni mucho menos que los

niños/as de esas edades digan algo en inglés. En esta etapa, no se les puede forzar a

producir, estamos enfrentando a los niños/as a un mundo distinto al suyo, por tanto, lo

que tenemos que intentar es, a través de la afectividad, motivarlos para que quieran

comprender esa nueva lengua, para que en fases posteriores, en su proceso de

enseñanza-aprendizaje, puedan exteriorizarla y enriquecerse personalmente de todo

lo que supone saber hablar otra lengua.

En este artículo les voy a presentar una experiencia educativa dentro de la asignatura

de Inglés que he llevado a cabo con mis alumnos/as basada en una festividad:

Thanksgiving o día de acción de gracias. En mis clases doy mucha importancia a la

celebración de festividades, basándome en la experiencia de todos estos años y los

buenos resultados obtenidos por parte de mis alumnos. Creo que hay que trasladar,

en la medida de lo posible, la realidad al aula, trabajando de forma activa y

significativa. Como preámbulo a la experiencia, les cuento una pequeña gran

anécdota que me sucedió: Una niña de Secundaria, un día vino a mi clase de inglés a

visitarme y estuvimos recordando vivencias pasadas. Lo que me sorprendió

gratamente y me hizo reflexionar es que se acordaba de una actividad que habíamos

realizado en 3º de infantil: “The Easter egg hunt”, recordaba hasta las canciones que

cantábamos, también trabajadas en años posteriores. Se trataba de esconder huevos

de Pascua de chocolate por toda la clase y ellos los tenían que encontrar;

previamente, se trabajaba toda la unidad didáctica. Reconocían el vocabulario,

cantábamos las canciones, les explicaba la historia del “Easter Bunny” a través de

ilustraciones y videos reales, les llevaba a clase la cestita para recoger los huevos de

chocolate y ellos creían que era el conejito quién los escondía. Me coordinaba con la

tutora para que en el momento que yo escondía los huevos ellos no estuvieran en

clase y seguidamente cuando ellos entraban yo les decía que dijeran adiós al conejito

que ya se iba corriendo por el patio… En esta situación se creaba una necesidad

comunicativa con el conejito, ellos sabían que éste no sabía español e intentaban

dirigirse a él en inglés, muchas veces con éxito, y que si no cantábamos las canciones

en inglés no encontraríamos los huevos, y los niños/as las aprendían. Muchos niños

cuando el “Easter Bunny” que teníamos de peluche en clase les hablaba, ellos le

contestaban (en inglés y algunos en español), estaban emocionados e ilusionados

porqué estaban viviendo una experiencia cercana, real, sabían que algo iba a ocurrir,

que el conejito iba a ir a la clase, el aprender tenía una finalidad, y esto se tradujo en

vivir una experiencia que la mayoría no han olvidado.

El uso de esta experiencia, “Thanksgiving”, se justifica, básicamente por dos razones:

es una festividad poco común en Educación Primaria y porque integro cuatro aspectos

muy importantes que actualmente hay que tener en cuenta a la hora de programar

dentro del área de inglés: educación en valores, conocimiento del medio, historia y

plástica.

THANKSGIVING:

Justification: To know more about the historic background of the USA. It is a very

important date to remember for American people. Also, students should shorten

distances with other cultures.

Schedule: 7th- 30th November.

Group: 4th of primary.

Objectives:

Understanding the Thanksgiving Day story as a socio-cultural aspect of USA.

Assimilating the new vocabulary related to Thanksgiving.

Speaking and interacting orally in an English communication situation.

Appreciating the English language in general as a mean of communication and

understanding among people from all around the world and as a learning tool.

Writing thanks for something to family, friends or teachers.

Carrying out handicraft tasks.

Key competences:

Linguistic competence.

Digital competence.

Social and civic competence.

Artistic and cultural competence.

Learning to learn competence.

Autonomy and entrepreneurship.

Communication situations:

Interacting orally about Thanksgiving (structures and vocabulary).

Singing and enjoying with songs and stories about the above topic.

Asking and answering questions about likes and dislikes, also about autumn

food.

Pragmatic competence:

To sing and listen to a story about Thanksgiving.

Taking part in easy dialogues.

To identify the autumn food and Thanksgiving vocabulary.

Understanding the vocabulary, expressions related to: thanks for…, I like…

Using simple oral questions and answers.

Games:

The word chain.

Hangman (as a thinking skill).

Required resources:

Cassette.

Blackboard.

Flashcards.

Worksheets.

Colours.

Scissors and glue.

Fancy dresses.

Toys (food).

Cardboard.

Biscuits, sweets and raisins.

Computers.

Stories.

The Mayflower.

Portfolio.

Video camera.

Stories:

Thanksgiving story.

Projects/crafts:

Thanksgiving cards.

Thanksgiving turkey.

Songs, chants and rhymes:

It’s Thanksgiving.

Come in (subject song).

Contents

Listening, speaking and oral interaction:

Listening to a story about Thanksgiving.

Getting global information through listening and understanding of

oral messages.

Oral interaction in real or simulated situations.

Progressive use of English as a means of communication.

Production of oral texts.

Oral production of a song.

Reading and Writing:

Reading a simple text about Thanksgiving.

The writing of a Thanksgiving card to a family, friends or teachers.

Carrying out handicraft tasks.

Intercultural understanding and socio-cultural features:

Social use of please, thank you, thanks.

Saying thank you in different languages.

Appreciation of cultural differences and diversity.

Interest in information received from others.

Respectful attitude towards English speaking people.

Knowledge of language:

Linguistics knowledge:

a) Lexis: Indian, Pilgrim, harvest, Mayflower, corn, pumpkin*, turkey*, mashed

potatoes, gravy, home-made biscuits. (*not new).

b) Lexical structures: It’s an Indian/ It’s a pilgrim; I’m an Indian…I like/don’t like; thank

you for…

c) Phonetic and phonology: Recognizing sounds and proper stress on words related

to Thanksgiving.

d) Grammar: Present simple sentences.

Reflection of learning:

a) Using skills, learning strategies and procedures to learn new lexis and lexical

structures.

b) Being self-confident and appreciating the individual and group work.

c) Getting familiarised with song sounds, rhythm and intonation of an English song.

d) Comprehension of particular information contained in a sentence.

e) Participation in dialogues.

f) Developing self-evaluation strategies to get the communicative competence.

g) Reflection about our own learning and accepting the error as a learning process.

h) Understanding specific information given orally by the teacher.

Evaluation criteria:

Participation on the teaching learning process and taking part in class.

Levels of understanding and revising application of the learnt concepts.

Teacher’s observation about general attitudes, efforts and participation.

Understanding and producing oral information related to Thanksgiving.

Adequate usage of the studied vocabulary.

Written production of thanks.

Dealing with diversity:

Reinforcement tasks: working about concepts and repetition.

Extension tasks: autonomous tasks.

Cross Curricular topics:

Intercultural education

Friendship.

Education for peace.

Links with other curricular areas:

Science, History and Art.

Now, I am going to expose the lessons I work to develop the unit of Thanksgiving, I

will only explain the Thanksgiving activities, I understand that each teacher uses in

his/her classroom his/her own warmers, routines and other items involved in the

process of teaching any didactic unit.

Lesson 1:

Illustrated story of Thanksgiving.

Presentation of the vocabulary: Indian, Pilgrim, harvest, Mayflower, corn, pumpkin*,

turkey*, mashed potatoes, gravy, home-made biscuits. (*not new) through different

games: using flash cards we play the following games among others: What’s missing?

I show all the flashcards, after a while, I hide one and pupils have to guess it.

Slow/fast, I show one flashcard very fast and children have to guess what is on it, and

so on. I show a small part of a flashcard and very slowly I continuous showing the rest

of it until someone in the class guesses the object. Also, I use another game: “repeat

the word after I click”. I use different voices saying the vocabulary.

Secondly, we go the book corner where there are a lot of Thanksgiving decorations

and the poster above. When children are quiet sitting on the carpet I begin to explain

the story with illustration support: Imagine, Imagine, Imagine: The Pilgrim

fathers sailed from Plymouth across the Atlantic Ocean in a ship called

Mayflower to Cape Cod in North America, when they arrived, the Indians were

there, Pilgrims sometimes fought with the Indians , but they also learnt a

lot of them.

The first winter was difficult. In spring Pilgrims started to grow

food, helped by some friendly Indians and in autumn of 1621 they

celebrated they first harvest (corn , pumpkin , grapes …)

The Pilgrims wanted to give Thanks, not only for the harvest , also

for their new home, new life and new friends .

Nowadays, most American and Canadian people still have a Thanksgiving dinner

with their families. They have: turkey , gravy , mashed potatoes

, corn , home-made biscuits and pumpkin pie .

Thanksgiving is usually celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November and has been

an annual tradition in the United States since 1863.

For explaining the story I use the Mayflower made of card:

Children really love this story and they are enthusiastic with the ship. As a

reinforcement activity I read again the story, it could be another day, Then, I choose

some sentences and I ask to pupils with some difficulties which sentences are true and

which ones are false.

Lesson 2:

First of all, we revise the lexis and the lexical structures presented in lesson 1.

We have got food (toys) in the class in a big basket. We play with it, creating

communicative situations: I take a piece of food and I ask a pupil: What’s this? Is it

a…? she/he answers my question: It is a pumpkin… Students also work in pairs and

practice the dialog with their partners (we can vary the dialogs). We create a proper

atmosphere to practice the dialog.

After that, students are going to listen to this song:

It’s Thanksgiving!

It’s Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving!

We eat turkey, Yum, Yum, Yum

Mashed potatoes, Yum, Yum, Yum

Home-made biscuits, Yum, Yum, Yum

Pumpkin pie, gravy, corn Yum, Yum, Yum

We sing the song several times playing with the vocabulary (I give pupils the

flashcards and when they listen to the word on their flashcards, they have to raise

them, if they are wrong, they pass the flashcard to another partner). Also, we sing the

Thanksgiving song in small groups.

Finally, children solve some crosswords in pairs. They complete them with the

partners’ help. As a reinforcement activity I prepare simple texts in which students

have to fill the gaps, they have got visual support of the words missing.

For homework, they have to prepare a menu using the vocabulary studied in class.

Lesson 3:

To start the lesson, pupils are going to play a game: I divide the class in two teams:

Indians and Pilgrims. One member of each team throws a dice, the team with the

highest number starts the game. In turns, each child belonging to his/her team says

this sentence: For Thanksgiving dinner I like turkey and gravy; the other team says the

same sentence adding a new ingredient, and so on. The team that is going to be able

to say the longest sentence using different ingredients will be the winner of the game.

Before playing the game, I display on the walls some Thanksgiving menus made for

homework.

All the class sing the song several times.

Now, it is time to present the main communicative activity:

Students are going to prepare the following dialogue in pairs with fancy dresses as

Indians and Pilgrims, real objects as food, a basket… and decorations:

- Pilgrim: Hello! I’m a Pilgrim, I like corn.

- Indian: Here you are.

- Pilgrim: THANK YOU!

- Indian: Hello! I’m an Indian, I like turkey.

- Pilgrim: Here you are.

- Indian: THANK YOU!

When they act out the dialogues, I’m going to record them with the video camera as

a way of evaluation.

Lesson 4:

First, we sing the Thanksgiving song in small groups to other classrooms in the

school.

We prepare a Thanksgiving card with Thanksgiving decorations: we reflect about if

we usually give thanks in our day life to our friends or family.

When students finish the cards they give them to their families as a present.

Finally, we prepare more thanks cards with different shapes to give them to other

teachers or classmates: Thank you for your maths lessons, teacher, Thank you for the

song, music teacher…we make a small school trip inside the school. When we come

into the classrooms we sing “the subjects’ song” learnt some units before (spiral

curriculum of Brunner).

Summarizing, I would like to name other activities done in this unit: making a

Thanksgiving turkey for Thanksgiving dinner with biscuits, sweets and raisins. When

students finish them, we simulate a Thanksgiving dinner and invite other classmates

and teachers to join us and enjoy the delicious turkeys.

At the end of the unit, we go to the computer room to play with some games: Turkey

hunt, Thanksgiving search, musical cards and we see a real Thanksgiving dinner in

the USA, searching in Internet. Nowadays, we can’t work in education without thinking

in the new technologies. Computers are the future for our students, so teachers as

good educational workers have to discover, explore and use them with our estimated

students. In addition, it would be interesting to realise a Thanksgiving Webquest, an

excellent tool to work and develop the digital competence.

Para concluir este artículo, esperando que haya sido de su agrado y a la vez útil

para su trabajo como docentes, me gustaría que quedara constancia que aprender

una lengua extranjera hoy en día es una necesidad por razones tanto sociales como

educativas. Formando parte de la Comunidad Europea es absolutamente necesario

saber una segunda lengua ya que es esencial en cualquier sociedad moderna.

Aprender un nuevo idioma no sólo nos acerca a otras culturas sino que nos permite

profundizar más en el conocimiento de nuestra lengua materna y de nuestra cultura.

Los alumnos podrán comunicarse con otras sociedades lingüísticas, valorar

positivamente diferentes estilos de vida e ideas culturales y además aprender, en este

caso el inglés, contribuye a desarrollar un sentimiento de tolerancia, tanto social

como cultural, indudablemente muy necesario en nuestra sociedad canaria, dónde el

fenómeno de la inmigración aumenta constantemente.

Class: Name:

Date: Topic:

My favourite Thanksgiving activity:

I didn’t like:

How I worked:

□on my own □with the help of my teacher □with my friends

My work was:

□very good □good □OK □not very good

In the group:

□ I collaborated with my friends

□ I shared my ideas

□ I participated in oral activities

□ I didn’t contribute much

□……………………………………………………………………………..

I CAN

I can

understand a

simple story of

Thanksgiving.

I can sing a

Thanksgiving

song.

I can recognize

Thanksgiving

vocabulary.

I can act out a

dialogue.

I can write

thanks for

something to

someone.

I can make a

Thanksgiving

turkey.

I can use

Thanksgiving

vocabulary.

I can write a

menu.

I can express

likes and

dislikes.

BIBLIOGRAFÍA:

Alburquerque, R. En el aula de Inglés, Longman Burnt Mill 1991.

Brewster, Jean. The Primary English teacher Guide, Penguin 1992.

Granger C., Games with English. Heinemann. London 1981.

Krashen S.D, The Natural Approach. Language acquisition in the classroom. Pergamon.

Press Oxford 1984.

Wiilis, J. Teaching English through English. Longman, Burnt Mill, 1981.

http://www.samford.edu/pbl/underconstruction.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_as_an_additional_language

http://www.eflclub.com