Thanksgiving: Thanksgiving today

Objective & content

This Look Closer episode (the last of the mini-series Thanksgiving, after the first Thanksgiving, the famous painting and Sarah Josepha Hale) is a short documentary about a typical Thanksgiving Day in an American family today. A single narrator follows the day from the date and the long weekend to the family dinner, explains each dish on the table and the custom of the wishbone, and adds one surprise: there was no pie at the first Thanksgiving in 1621. It is a comprehension episode: the narration uses the present simple with always and often, there is and there was, the comparative bigger and the imperative look; no grammar point is taught. Learners listen, then answer the 10 questions in the app: 7 on facts and 3 on vocabulary (stuffing, cranberries, wishbone).

Materials & prerequisites

The folder holds the audio, the slideshow and the script. Each pack is a one-page PDF with the text, three pictures, the key words and the 10 questions: a pupil pack, and a teacher pack with the answers highlighted. It also has a pupil sheet and a teacher sheet with the answer key. It has no lesson plan. Play the episode twice, hand out the pupil pack, then use the closing question (What are you thankful for this year?) for a short class discussion, and ask pupils which family celebration in their own country is like it. Learners should know the days of the week, the months, food words such as bread, potatoes and pie, and be able to read ordinal numbers such as fourth. The pack's key words explain the new words (weekend, travel, grandparents, turkey, oven, parade, mashed potatoes, sauce, dessert).