Thanksgiving

Ardis Flenniken and Laurel Williams

Multilevel adult ESL class (beginning to high intermediate)

Before you begin:

Teacher should visit all of the Web sites the night before to make sure everything students have everything they need to complete the activity. Predict the obstacles students may have before cutting them loose!

Objectives:

1. Read vocabulary for Thanksgiving foods.
2. Plan a Thanksgiving menu for the following courses: main course, vegetable, dessert.
3. Find recipes for these courses on the Web at http://www.butterball.com.

WEB SITES:

http://www.butterball.com/pages
http://www.homegrocer.com
http://www.otan.dni.us/webfarm/emailproject/food.htm

Requirements:

Requires Computers

Presentation

1. Find out what students already know about the Thanksgiving holiday and the foods that are traditionally served.
2. Brainstorm Thanksgiving food vocabulary and put it on the board as a cluster/idea map. (Use pictures if available, or a picture dictionary.)
3. Ask students what their favorite foods are in the following categories: beverage, main dish, vegetable, and dessert. Interview a partner briefly (can fill out a grid).
4. Give students the Web sites from which they can gather information.

Practice

1. In pairs or alone, students visit Web sites. They can work at their own pace in this multilevel class.
2. Less proficient students can go to the Otan site, read food vocabulary, and copy food pictures onto a "menu" they will later print out.
3. More proficient students can locate the ingredients needed for their recipes and determine prices from homegrocer.com. Calculate the entire cost of the meal. (They could be given a budget limit to work within at the start.)