Russell Stannard continues his exploration of a rich source of video on the internet.
Your students may still like to discuss what they did over the holiday period and how Christmas and New Year are celebrated in different countries. The first activity uses the videos on the BBC’s Video Nation site, a superb resource, which I recommended in my last article.
1. Christmas
www.bbc.co.uk/videonation/archive/index.shtml
Divide the class into three groups and give each a different computer with a link to a video. Here are three links to videos about different aspects of Christmas:
www.bbc.co.uk/videonation/articles/c/cumbria_ christmaslights.shtml
This video is about a couple who are Christmas light fanatics. It is quite difficult, but will be very interesting for the students.
www.bbc.co.uk/videonation/articles/c/cumbria_ christmas.shtml
Here you will find a man talking about Christmas in his house and the presents which his daughter got.
www.bbc.co.uk/videonation/articles/c/cumbria_ christmasworries.shtml
This video gives a different viewpoint on Christmas – a man talks about his job and how he would normally spend the holiday season. Give each group a questionnaire with questions based on the video they watched. Here is one for the first link:
- When did they first become grandparents?
- What was the first set of lights they bought for the house?
- Who did they buy for the lights for?
- When do they buy the lights?
- Why do people stop them in the street?
- When do they put the lights up?
- How long does it take to put up the lights?
- What do other people think?
- What is their reaction to all the people who come and visit the house?
- How much has it cost them to have so many lights?
The students normally have to watch the video about three times before they can complete the questionnaire. When they have finished, re-group them, with one student in each new group having watched a different video. Ask them to tell the other students about the video they watched. Finally, give them a set of statements about all three videos; they have to say which video each statement refers to. For example:
- They have lots of people standing outside their house.
- His daughter got a dolls’ house for Christmas.
- They don’t drink or smoke.
- His wife is pregnant.
- She enjoyed the week before Christmas more than Christmas Day.
- Sally’s father painted the dolls’ house.
- He normally works as a fireman.
- He hasn’t got much money for Christmas this year.
Comments
In one of my mixed nationality groups, I was surprised to find that a spontaneous discussion broke out about Christmas in other countries. If I did this activity again, I think that once I had re-grouped the students and got them to talk about the different videos they had seen, I would give them a handout with some focus questions to encourage discussion about Christmas in their countries.
2. New Year
www.geocities.com/Heartland/Plains/7214/newyear.htm
Make a worksheet with a series of questions (see below) about New Year traditions. Include two columns for the answers, headed Before reading and After reading. The students read the questions in pairs and in the Before reading column they write the answers (if they don’t know an answer, they have to guess). They then go to the website, read about different traditions around the world and see how many of their answers were correct by writing the correct answer in the After reading column of the worksheet. If you don’t have computers in the classroom, this activity would work just as well if you provided the students with a text based on the information on the site and I have done this in the past. You could simply print out the pages (you should contact the site first and ask for permission: for educational purposes you are allowed to copy small amounts of text from a site; this is known as fair use), but the easiest thing is to write a summary of the key points. You could make the level lower by simplifying the text and making the questions easier.
- In which religion do people call their New Year Rosh Hashanah?
- In what country do they grow seeds in preparation for New Year?
- In what country do people like to wear pink, red, purple or white flowers for the New Year?
- Which people have a procession of lanterns at New Year?
- In Gujarat what other festival do they celebrate at the same time as New Year?
- In what country do they hang up a rope of straw on New Year’s Day? It stands for good luck and happiness.
- In what language is New Year called Yuan Tan?
- What song do people in many countries sing at midnight on New Year’s Eve?
- In what country is New Year called Hogmanay?
- In what country do people set a fish free?
Answers: 1 Jewish 2 Iran 3 West Bengal (northern India) 4 Chinese 5 Diwali 6 Japan 7 Chinese 8 Auld Lang Syne 9 Scotland 10 Vietnam
Russell Stannard is a senior lecturer in ICT and course leader for MSc Multimedia at the University of Westminster, UK. He has an extensive publishing background in ELT and is currently working with BBC Worldwide on various CD-ROMs, and with Macmillan Hong Kong on a primary course. He also teaches English and Spanish at Sutton Adult Education College, UK.
This article first appeared in English Teaching Professional, Issue 36, 2005
