Type of activity

• whole class melee
• finding out about traditional customs and filling in a calendar

• upper intermediate/average
• 30 - 40 minutes

• Texts: A - New Year's Day; B - Shrove Tuesday; C - Kissing Friday; D - April Fool's Day; E - May Day; F - Halloween; G - Mischief Night; H - New Year's Eve
• Worksheet

• describing habits and customs

• present simple

• customs and rituals

1. New Year's Day: rise, make the round, mincepies, fool
2. Shrove Tuesday: festival, pancake, fair cane, skipping, blocked, lengths, clothesline, abreast
3. Kissing Friday: mixed class, embarrassment, lad, proved, encountered, expostulate, turmoil
4. April Fool's Day: joyous, hoax, pigeon, come in for their share, fooling, needlework, taken in, exempt, glueing, stuck, yell, eggshell, sense of humour, fright
5. May Day: maidens, rise, dawn, dew, ensure, complexion, pimples, freckles, customary, rite, thereafter, maypole, garlands, stool, lace curtain
6. Halloween: tub, basin, floated, stab, hook, nail, cored, supernatural influences, peel, initial, represents, stands for vigorously, row, part
7. Mischief Night: mischief, hooliganism, lawlessness, permissible, assaulted, bogus, hoisted, daubed, coated, treacle, tripped over, unscrewed, tapped, drainpipes, stuffed, set alight, wet through, ashes, loop, door knobs, tugging
8. New Year's Eve: ashes, afresh, assist, wealth, health, household, first-footer welcomed, hospitality, threshold, ensure, well-being, spirit, siren, sprig, evergreen, toast (drink)

• Make enough copies of text A for one eighth of the students to have a copy each, and the same for texts B - H. Make enough copies of the worksheet for a quarter of the class.
• Begin by asking students about customs and rituals on special days in their countries. (This is a good activity to do either on a day when it is one of their own festivals, or on a British festival, or as part of a British Life and Institutions course.)
• Divide the class into eight groups, A, B, C, D, E, F, G and H. Give text A to each student in group A, text B to those in group B, etc.
• Tell them they are going to read abut customs that take place on certain festival days in Britain. Give the groups time to read their text and discuss it. Go round and help as necessary.
• When they have finished, ask them all to stand up.
• The object of the activity is to find out as much as possible about customs that take place on other festival days.
• To do this they will have to move around the class telling each other about their day and the rituals that happen on it. When they have finished or the time limit (10-15 minutes) is up, put them in groups of four and give each group a worksheet. They should work together to complete the worksheet, filling in the calendar with the names of the days and the activities and customs that happen on those days. Round off the activity by going through the calendar and asking what happens on each day.

Key:

January - New Year's Day, children ask for gifts;
February - Shrove Tuesday, people make and throw pancakes, everyone goes skipping, a bell is rung; February - Kissing Friday, boys can kiss any girl they like;
April - April Fool's Day, children tell people things that aren't true, children play tricks on grown-ups;
May - May Day, girls wash their faces in the dew, children visit houses with garlands of flowers;
October - Halloween, girls put nuts in the fire, girls brush their hair in front of the mirror, children play duck apple, girls throw apple peel over their shoulder;
November - Mischief Night, children play tricks on grown-ups;
December - New Year's Eve, people place money and bread outside the door, householders welcome a tall dark man with wood, coal and silver coins.
 
 

Follow up:

• Ask students to write a description of a festival day and its customs from their own country.