Presenting American Culture to Students of English: Thanksgiving Day

by Dr Antonio R. Roldán Tapia

Alhaken II High School / University of Córdoba, Spain 

INTRODUCTION 

            Teaching and learning English in many European countries means having a British-centred view of the language, its speakers and their culture(s). It is something to be expected because of the short distance between the UK and the continent, and because of the influence of publishers based in Britain.

I do not want to say that this is wrong, but it gives students a restricted knowledge of the language and its culture.  By taking a look at popular textbooks, it can be noted that students can only find a little information about the States, like the American flag, a picture of the White House and something else....hamburgers and cola.

The purpose of this article is to share how other native speakers’ cultures can be learnt at school, independently of the textbook we are using.

Because of my personal and professional experience, I have tried to teach my students about the USA and American culture.

One of the occasions that is typically American is Thanksgiving Day.  Some Spanish students have heard about eating turkey, but their information about this celebration goes no further than that.

This year my intention was to teach my students about Thanksgiving, and I thought that one of the best ways to do this would be to invite an American friend, living temporarily in the city, into the classroom, and participate in a session with the students.

STEPS

            After explaining to my American friend what I intended to do, and after getting her consent, I began by arousing my students’ interest in the issue.  In the first week of November, I started mentioning Thanksgiving during the lesson so that, little by little, they started asking questions about it.  Most of their questions were in Spanish but I felt that it did not matter at this stage, so long as they were interested.

            Then I told them that we were going to have a guest in the class, and that they would be able to learn about it from her.           

            We prepared a list of questions to ask our guest.  The questions, which can be seen below, were negotiated between us, and they rehearsed them for the interview.  I  asked them to take notes while listening to our guest, so that they would be able to write a composition on Thanksgiving as homework. 

CLASS SESSION

            As our guest came in, I introduced her to the students, very briefly, and then they began asking their questions.  Our guest showed extraordinary expertise – in fact, she is also a school teacher - and she alternated her answers together with some poems and a song.   She taught the students a couple of poems in a kind of sign language, used by native Americans to communicate among themselves, and she also taught them a traditional song called Turkey in the Straw, which they ended up singing, clapping, and whistling to.

            While our guest was answering the questions, the students were taking rough notes, to be written up later as a final composition on the topic.

            The questions they prepared are as follows: 

What follows is a couple of samples from the compositions written by the students. They contain typical inter-language mistakes, but they represent their writing ability.           

          Thanksgiving day is holiday in USA. They celebrate Thanksgiving Day in third Thursday of November with a great dinner in family. In this day, they celebrate the moment in that American Indians helped the first English men that arrived. In the dinner they eat turkey, chestnuts, potatoes, cranberries and pumpkin pie. In this day the children don’t go to school. This day is it celebrated by Americans in all parts of the world.

          They celebrate Thanksgiving Day in USA the third thursday of November. They remember when the British pilgrims went to America in the mayflower. But life in the United States wasn’t very good, they were hungry and American Indians helped them. So Lincoln established this day in commemoration for the fraternity of the people. Now, they celebrate it with a dinner with turkey, pumpkin pie, cranberries, in family. The symbols are the turkey, the peregrims (pilgrims) and the basket with the fruit.  

            The song they sang in the class was a traditional folk song about the turkey as a symbol of the celebration.  They enjoyed it very much, probably because of the cultural distance between this type of folk song and ours.

LINKS

            Even though internet is not so widely used as it is in other countries, I provided my students with a web site where they could get extra information, activities and games related to Thanksgiving Day. It is a colleague’s web site that you can reach by clicking on http://www.isabelperez.com/thanksgiving.htm.

FOLLOW-UP

            A few days after that class, I explained to the students another cultural difference between Spanish and American people: whereas in Spain people are not so expressive in saying thankyou – or at least not in the same way - in the US writing thankyou cards is a good example of politeness and gratitude. Therefore, we decided to write a thankyou card to our guest for sharing some of her culture and knowledge with us.  I taught them some expressions they could use, but they also asked for help in order to write their own individual messages. 

EVALUATION OF THE EXPERIENCE

            From the students’ point of view the experience was a success.  I could perceive this in the interest they demonstrated before the visit, in the close attention they paid to our guest, how they were asking the questions and taking notes, and the quality of their compositions. They enjoyed the fact that they could interact with a native speaker of the language, they could understand most of what she said, and they could realize that there are different English-speaking cultures.

            As a teacher, I had already had the experience of inviting a native speaker or other teachers to the class, and I therefore expected this activity to be a success.  The whole exercise surpassed my expectations, and it proved to be one of the highlights of the term and, probably, of the year.

            No doubt, observing other colleagues in action is one of the best instruments for training, no matter how much experience you may have with your students, as you can always pick up some ideas or strategies from them.  

            Carrying out this type of activity can involve both a risk and a challenge, but what is gained in terms of motivation is so much that it makes the teacher start planning another activity just like this one.      

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© Dr Antonio R. Roldán Tapia 2001. All rights reserved.