Цели:
- Образовательные:
- Совершенствование и пополнение лексической базы учащихся.
- Формирование речевых навыков и навыков аудирования.
- Совершенствование навыков выразительного рассказывания стихотворений.
- Осуществление межпредметных связей с историей, литературой, мировой художественной культурой, музыкой.
- Развивающие:
- Формирование социокультурной компетенции учащихся.
- Поддержание интереса к изучению культурных традиций Великобритании.
- Развитие мотивации к изучению английского языка.
- Воспитательные:
- Воспитание уважительного отношения к культуре и традициям других стран.
- Воспитание толерантности, уважения учащихся друг к другу, умения слушать собеседника.
Оборудование:
- праздничное оформление кабинета,
- компьютер,
- мультимедийный проектор с большим экраном,
- музыкальный центр,
- записи рождественских песен,
- поздравительные открытки учащихся.
Ход мероприятия
Teacher: Good afternoon, dear children! Today we are having an unusual party. Our party is devoted to the most interesting, the most beautiful and the most favourite holiday in Great Britain – Christmas.
Pupils:
Merry, Merry Christmas
Is likely to come.
Merry, Merry Christmas,
You are welcome!
Snow in the window,
Much confetti,
Bright-blue, red and yellow
Lights on the tree.
Smiling eyes and faces,
Sweet music in the hall,
I think someone places
Happiness here for all.
Merry, Merry Christmas
Is likely to come.
Merry, Merry Christmas,
You are welcome!
Teacher: Traditionally Christmas is considered to be a religious holiday. It is the day on which Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.
The Christmas story comes from the Bible. St.Luke tells a beautiful story of shepherds who were watching their sheep when an angel appeared to them. He told them that a Saviour had been born in the town of Bethlehem. The shepherds went there to see Jesus.
According to the Bible the baby Jesus was born in a stable two thousand years ago and was the Son of God. His mother was the Virgin Mary. The word “Christmas” means “Christ’s Mass”. The Mass is an ancient Christian church service at which people give praise and glory to God.
The song “Silent Night”. The children sing it along, too. Приложение 1.
Teacher: There are some interesting traditions and customs connected with Christmas in Great Britain. British people are very proud of them and try to observe them carefully. Today we will tell about some of these traditions.
Pupil: Christmas is a happy holiday. Families prepare for this holiday weeks before. They decorate their homes with wreaths of holly, ivy, evergreens and mistletoe.
Holly is an evergreen plant with sharp-pointed leaves and red berries. People use it to decorate their homes. It is a very old tradition. Long ago people began to put holly in their homes during the dark cold winters. They liked to look at this plant and think about the spring and the sun.
Holly is one of the most popular evergreens. It is a symbol of good luck, just like the horseshoe. By the way the word “holly” comes from the same word as “holy”.
Pupil: A holly bush planted in the garden is said to keep the house safe from lightning. Farmers used to hang a sprig of holly in their cowsheds on Christmas Eve to make sure they had a good supply of milk and healthy calves during the coming year.
Ivy, which is a soft and clinging plant, was once thought to be a symbol of woman. Holly, with its tough and leathery leaves, was supposed to be a symbol of man. Entwining holly and ivy in a Christmas decoration was supposed to ensure peace in the home between a husband and a wife in the year ahead.
Pupil: Mistletoe is an evergreen plant with small leaves and small white berries.
Mistletoe was a special plant for the Druids, who lived in Britain before the days of Christianity. If it is to flourish, it needs the support of a tree, such as an oak. The oak was a sacred tree to the Druids, who believed that the evergreen mistletoe kept the spirit of the tree alive during the winter months.
This evergreen plant became a symbol of peace and friendship. On Christmas Eve there is a bunch of mistletoe in every house.
Teacher: The traditional colours for this holiday are red and green; and poinsettia is considered the Christmas flower. It has been a Christmas symbol since the 1820s, when Joel Poinsett, the American minister to Mexico, brought it to his country. Let’s listen to a story about this wonderful flower.
Pupil: Poinsettia is called the “Flower of the Holy Night”. There is a legend that tells about a little peasant girl who, on Christmas Eve, wanted to go to a Midnight Mass with a gift for Jesus. She had nothing to give, but angels appeared and told her to pick some weeds and take them into the cathedral. As she went in, everyone laughed at her. Suddenly, the top leaves on each stem burst into a flame of scarlet. The people fell to their knees and the little peasant girl marched proudly forward to make her offering at the crib. The shape of poinsettia is often compared to the mythically symmetrical Star of Bethlehem.
Pupil:
Take your dreams this Christmas
And decorate the tree.
Look up high
And once again
The glowing star you’ll see.
Take your dreams
And carry them
Into the coming year.
Dreams are made of hope and love
Whenever faith is near.
Pupil: The most popular of all the Christmas evergreens is the fir tree. The idea of bringing a fir tree indoors at Christmas occurred in the 16th century. Fir trees decorated with fruit, sweets, cookies, wafers and candles have been popular in Germany ever since. By the 17th century they were known as “Christ trees”.
Teacher: The Christ tree remained largely a German custom until the nineteenth century, when it was taken to England by German merchants and popularized by Queen Victoria's husband, Prince Albert. Ever since, it has been an essential ingredient of the Christmas season. No family which takes a properly enthusiastic view of the festival could possibly imagine Christmas without a Christmas tree. It just would not be the same!
Pupil: Children decorate the Christmas tree with 'tinsel, toys, shining balls and flags. They place a shining star at the top of the Christmas tree.
Teacher: Sales of artificial trees are booming too. Particularly popular are the silvery tinsel affairs made of aluminum-coated artificial fibre. They are very attractive and there is always an advantage that they can be folded up and put away till next year.
Teacher: At Christmas traditional gift bringers visit children all over the world. Santa Claus is the best known of these. Santa Claus is an American name. In Europe he was known for centuries as St. Nicholas. The change occurred when the Dutch imported Nicholas to America. His name became “Sinterklass” and finally Santa Claus.
St. Nicholas is said to be a rich man who used his wealth to help others. People loved him for his generosity. He always left presents to good children.
Let’s listen to an extract from a very popular poem by Clement C Moore “A Visit from St. Nicholas”, also known as “The Night before Christmas”.
Pupil:
‘Twas the night before Christmas,
When all through the house
Not a creature was stirring,
Not even a mouse.
The stockings were hung
By the chimney with care,
In hopes that St.Nicholas
Soon would be there;
The children were nestled
All snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar plums
Danced in their heads…’
Pupil: Santa Claus did not always arrive at Christmas. In Europe he showed up on December, 6. And he did not always look the way he does now. The Dutch made him out to look thin, tall and dignified. Later in the early 1800s he was imagined as a bulky man who smoked a pipe and wore baggy trousers. He did not even have a beard. Then thanks to the cartoonist Thomas Nast Santa Claus began to look the way we know him today.
In England the spirit of Christmas is known as Father Christmas. They say he comes from the North Pole in a reindeer-drawn sleigh. He has a white beard and red and white clothes. He is always merry.
Pupil:
A good time is coming.
I wish it were here,
The very best time
In the whole of the year.
I’m counting each day
On my fingers and thumbs
The weeks that must pass
Before Santa Claus comes.
Pupil: According to time-honoured tradition, all English children hang their stockings at the foot of their beds or at the fireplace on Christmas Eve. During the night Father Christmas (Santa Claus) comes in his reindeer-drawn sleigh, creeps stealthily down the chimney and fills the stockings with presents.
The custom of hanging stockings on a mantel in anticipation of small presents has started of one very popular story about the kindness of St. Nicholas who provided dowries for the three daughters of an impoverished nobleman by dropping bags of money down the chimney. One of these down-the-chimney gifts happened to fall into a stocking that was hung to dry by the fire; hence the custom of hanging stockings in the same place.
A Christmas stocking is not a real stocking. It is big and beautifully decorated.
Pupil: It is a tradition to sing Christmas carols on the radio and in public places during this season. Carols are Christmas songs. They are songs about the birth of Jesus. The word “carol”, which comes from the same Greek word as “chorus”, used to mean originally not a song but a dance. Round dances, performed to flute music, were popular among the ancient Greeks and Romans, and the latter brought them to England.
By the 13th century a carol had come to mean not just a dance but the music that was sung to accompany it. Today only this meaning remains. Christmas songs spread from Italy throughout Europe and enjoyed great popularity. People often sing carols in the streets or at home on Christmas Eve.
Teacher: The most popular carols are “O Little Town of Bethlehem”, “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”, “Silent Night”, “The First Noel”, “Joy to the World” and “Jingle Bells”.
The children sing the song “Jingle Bells”. Приложение 2.
Teacher: Turkey, goose, roast beef, Christmas pudding, small round mince pies, nuts and oranges….Every year the traditional Christmas dishes appear on the dinner tables of Britain. Yet how many people ever think about their origins?
Let’s listen to the stories about two tasty dishes on the Christmas dinner table.
Pupil: Christmas pudding is a traditional English dish for the Christmas dinner table. It is the highlight of the Christmas dinner. In the old days it was made of beef or mutton broth thickened with brown bread, prunes, raisins, currants, ginger and mace. This was served as a thick soup in a huge tureen and eaten at the beginning of the meal. In the 18th century flour was added to the pudding and it became the custom to eat it at the end of the meal.
Pupil: Nowadays the ingredients of Christmas pudding include raisins, currants, sultanas, candied peel, chopped almonds and walnuts, grated carrot and a good measure of brandy, whisky or old ale.
The traditional time for making Christmas pudding is “Stir-up Sunday” at the beginning of Advent. In many households the mixing of the pudding is quite a ceremony. All the members of the family take turns to stir and make a secret wish. A wooden spoon is normally used. A proper Christmas pudding is always stirred from East to West. It is served to table decorated with sprigs of holly. Traditionally a coin is placed into the pudding. It brings good luck to a person who finds it.
Pupil: It used to be the custom to bake a special rich cake for Twelfth Night, the last day of Yuletide. Yuletide begins in the middle of December and ends on the 6th of January
Today a lighter Christmas cake is made and eaten throughout the Christmas period. It is a succulent fruit iced cake.
Pupil: It is a custom in Britain for everybody to send Christmas cards to their friends and relatives just before Christmas. There is usually a pretty picture of some kind on the card, and a few words such as "Best wishes for a happy Christmas" or simply "A Merry Christmas".
John Calcott Horsley, an English artist, is generally considered the creator of the first Christmas card. This innovation took place in 1843, when a certain Henry Cole asked the artist to design a card that he could send to each of his friends. That card sold perhaps a thousand copies at a shilling each.
Very often the card brings good wishes for the New Year too, and then it will say: "A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year".
There are also special cards for the New Year, but in Britain only those people usually send them who have forgotten to send a Christmas card.
Pupil: One can often see a robin on Christmas cards. Robins have been a popular image on Christmas cards since Victorian times.
Many years ago postmen had bright red coats. They looked like robins. At Christmas they brought a lot of Christmas cards. And people began to think about a robin as a Christmas bird.
Teacher: It is also a custom in Britain to give friends and relatives presents on the day after Christmas Day. People call this day Boxing Day. Listen to a story about this day and you will learn why it has such a special name.
Pupil: Boxing Day is on the 26th of December. It is the second day of Christmas. This day is a bank holiday. People do not go to work on that day. They visit friends or go to the theatre. Everybody gives and receives Christmas cards and Christmas boxes.
Traditionally people put their Christmas presents into boxes. That is why the day on which they give and receive these boxes is called Boxing Day. A Christmas box is wrapped in bright coloured paper with ribbons. Slide 1.
Teacher: So, you see that Christmas is a wonderful holiday. Both children and grown-ups like it for presents and cards, decorations and good things to eat.
I congratulate you on this holiday and I wish you a Merry Christmas. I wish you to be happy, healthy, wealthy and wise.
Let’s congratulate each other and sing the song “We wish you a Merry Christmas”.
(Ученики обмениваются сделанными своими руками поздравительными открытками.)
Everybody sings the song “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”. Приложение 3.