Introduction & goals
Welcome to today's lesson. We are going to talk about Halloween. In the following slides, you will be making a Halloween quiz, getting some tips & tricks, reading a text, and making some exercises regarding the text. At the end, we will ask you to fill out an evaluation form about the online lesson. We hope you enjoy & good luck!
Halloween Game
We are going to start today's lesson with a fun game. Doing this game before the reading text will activate your knowledge about Halloween related vocabulary, which will be useful for the reading text since it's about the same subject. Goodluck!
What: Play the game below
How: alone on your computer
Help: online dictionary
Finished: when you are finished you are able to ad more words to your vocabulary.
Time: 9 minutes
Done: go to the next slide
Instruction clip with tips & tricks
In the following clip, you will be introduced to several reading tips & tricks. Watch this video and then fill out the Google forms on the next page.
What: watch the video below
Finished: when you are finished you are able to make the following exercises on the next slide with the new tips & tricks.
Done: go to the next slide
Test yourself!
In the Microsoft Form below you can test yourself on your (hopefully) newly attained skills.
Halloween text
You are going to read the following text about Halloween and answer questions regarding the text.
The origins of Halloween
If you think of Halloween, you probably think of scary carved pumpkins, all kinds of fancy dress and children asking for sweets. And if you think of a country that celebrates Halloween, you probably think of the United States first. Americans and Canadians have adopted Halloween in a big way, but Halloween traditions actually come from 16th-century Ireland, Scotland and England.
The tradition of Halloween on 31 October comes from the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain. Samhain was the Celtic New Year and they celebrated it on 1 November because that was the end of summer and harvest time (life) and the beginning of winter (death). It was also the time for ghosts to return to earth for a day. People lit a big fire, wore special clothes made of animal skin and hoped to be safe from the ghosts and the winter. In AD 609, the Catholic Church put the Christian celebration of All Saints Day on 1 November. In AD 1000, the church added All Souls Day on 2 November, and All Hallows Eve – or Halloween – moved to the night of the 31st.
Pumpkins
The Celts carved faces into vegetables like turnips, potatoes and squash (a pumpkin is a kind of squash) to scare the ghosts and other spirits and make them go away. It was sometimes called a jack-o’-lantern because of an Irish story about a man, Jack. He played a trick on the devil and then had to walk the earth for all time as a punishment. Irish people who came to live in the United States in the 1800s found pumpkins much easier to carve, and the tradition became the one we see today.
Fancy dress
The Celts were afraid of the ghosts that came on Samhain. If they went outside after dark, they covered their faces with masks. They hoped any ghosts they met would think they were ghosts too and would leave them alone. In early America, the Native Americans and the first Europeans celebrated the end of the harvest, but not Halloween. When Irish people arrived, the harvest festival started to look more like Halloween and it became popular across the country. In the late 19th century, people tried to make Halloween less about ghosts and religion and more about celebrating the season with a party for neighbours and family. That’s why Americans today wear all kinds of Halloween costumes and not just scary things like witches and ghosts like in other countries.
Trick or treat
This is another tradition that began in Europe, this time in England. When the church introduced All Souls Day, rich people gave poor people ‘soul cakes’, a small cake made with spices and raisins. It replaced the Celtic tradition of leaving food outside houses for the ghosts. ‘Going a-souling’ was popular in England for hundreds of years until about the 1930s. The Americans kept the tradition, but today children knock on people’s doors and ask for sweets. Going trick or treating is so popular that a quarter of the sweets for the year in the United States are sold for this one day.
The rest of the world
Halloween has become the United States’ second-biggest commercial festival after Christmas. Halloween is also celebrated in other countries, but it’s not as big as in the United States, even in the countries where the traditions began. Mexico celebrates the Day of the Dead from 31 October to 2 November and some of its traditions, like giving gifts of sugar skulls, are starting to mix with Halloween. In this way, the celebration of Halloween continues to change as new traditions join the oldest of the Celtic ones.
Quiz
Now that you have read the text you are going to answer the following questions on Socrative.
What: do the quiz in Socrative
How: If you click on the link below it will lead you to the Socrative website. Once it asks for a room name, enter the following code: NIKKI4474
Time: it should take you less than 10 minutes
Finished: you have now improved you reading skills and know more about Halloween.
Done: If you found this exercise difficult than I recommend you to make the B2 level reading text. If you find doable or easy that I recommend you to do the C1 level reading text.
https://b.socrative.com/student/#name
Extra reading exercises B2 level
Extra Reading exercise C1 Advanced level
If you found the previous text easy and made zero to very few mistakes, please refer to the link below for C1 Advanced reading text/exercises.
What: do the exercises
How: click on the following link: https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/skills/reading/advanced-c1/horror-film-clich-s
Time: it should take you less than 20 minutes
Finished: you have now improved you reading skills and know more about Halloween.
Done: go to the slide with the evaluation
Evaluation (Google Forms)
Bronnen
