Independence Day

Objective & content

This is a documentary podcast about the Fourth of July, America's birthday and a day off for the whole country. One friend explains and the other asks questions: in one short aside, a famous paper from 1776 makes America a free country, and today the Declaration of Independence is in a glass case in Washington, with fifty-six names at the bottom. Then the day goes on: a morning parade with a marching band, fire trucks and kids on bikes with red, white and blue streamers (one small town in Rhode Island has a party every year, and the first one was in 1785), the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, tapped thirteen times for the first thirteen states, a flag cake made with strawberries and blueberries, and fireworks at night, with families on blankets in the park. The grammar focus is present simple, with there is and there are, questions (Can people go and see it?) and prepositions of time (in the morning, at two o'clock, at night). Learners listen for the numbers and dates, the celebration words and the food words.

Materials & prerequisites

• Student sheet and teacher sheet, each as HTML and PDF (in the episode's printables folder).
• Prerequisites: present simple, numbers to one hundred, colours and basic food vocabulary.

Curriculum alignment

Tagged c3-child-and-wider-environment, so it fits cycle 3 (6e). It is also an easy way into the 3e axis Les États-Unis (the country's founding, told lightly) and the British and American festivals strand of the Polish and Italian programmes. The episode targets CEFR A1+.