Generalising about festivals and celebrations

Generalising about festivals and celebrations

Listen to your partner talk about one festival or celebration then ask questions such as those on the next page to find out more details. Take turns doing the same until your teacher stops you. The person who is describing the festival or celebration shouldn’t look at the list of follow-up questions.

All Saints Day/ (Mexican) Day of the Dead/ Día de los Muertos April Fool’s Day Armistice Day/ Remembrance Day/ War Memorial Day/ Poppy Day (Mid-)Autumn Festival/ Mooncake Festival (adult) baptism birth Bonfire Night/ Guy Fawkes Night/ Fireworks night (1st/18th/ 20th/ 21st) birthday Boxing Day Buddha’s birthday/ Vesak Burning Man Carnival/ Mardi Gras cherry blossom viewing christening/ naming ceremony (British/ American/ Japanese/ Spanish/ French) Christmas (Day/ Eve) children’s day circumcision coming of age confirmation Constitution Day/ Independence Day Diwali Easter (Sunday)/ Semana Santa Eid (ul Fitr) Emperor’s birthday/ King’s birthday/ Queen’s birthday engagement Father’s Day (Spanish) fiesta Fire Festival first communion Gay Pride Glastonbury Good Friday

graduation Halloween Hanukkah harvest festivals Holi paint throwing festival Krampus Nacht La Tomatina tomato throwing festival Lent May Day Mother’s Day National holidays/ Bank holidays (Scottish/ Japanese/ Chinese/ lunar) New Year/ New Year’s Day/ New Year’s Eve/ Rosh Hashanah Notting Hill Carnival Oktoberfest Peppero Day/ Pocky Day Purim Quinceañera Ramadan retirement Running of the Bulls Sabbath/ Shabbat Saint Patrick’s Day saint’s day Shrove Tuesday/ Pancake Day Snow Festival Songkran water throwing festival summer festival Tanabata Teachers’ Day Thanksgiving Valentine’s Day (silver/ gold/ diamond) wedding anniversary wedding ceremony wedding reception “White Day” Whitsun

Possible follow-up questions about festivals and celebrations

• Do you have to…?
• How do you feel about…?
• How embarrassing is…?/ How uncomfortable does… make you feel?
• How fun is…?/ How much fun is…?
• How important is…?
• How keen are you on…?
• How long do you…?
• How much do you enjoy…?/ How enjoyable is…?
• How much food is there?/ How much… is there?/ How many dishes are there?/ How many… are there?
• How much of it takes place…?
• How often do you miss/ avoid…?
• How typical is…?
• How’s the atmosphere?
• How’s the food?
• Is it your favourite…?
• What do you do before/ after…?
• What do you like least about…?/ What’s your least favourite part of…?
• What do you like most about…?/ What’s your favourite part of…?
• What does… mean?/ What is the meaning of…?
• Where does… take place?

Tell the class about one of your partner’s most extreme experiences/ feelings related to festivals and celebrations.

Were they any which your partner didn’t have strong feelings about?

What strong and weak language can you use to talk about festivals and celebrations?

 

Ranking language

Rewrite each section below in order of strength (from the strongest to the weakest, from the most positive to the most negative, etc). They are all in the wrong order now.

• absolutely hate
• absolutely love
• don’t mind
• don’t really like
• like
• really don’t like
• really enjoy

 

• absolutely gorgeous
• extremely beautiful
• fairly beautiful
• not so beautiful
• really beautiful/ very beautiful
• so beautiful/ extremely beautiful

 

• all
• almost all
• most/ the majority of
• some
• the vast majority of
• virtually all

 

• few/ (a) little/ not much/ not many
• almost no
• many/ a lot of/ loads of
• no
• so many/ huge numbers of/ huge amounts of/ tons of
• some

 

• almost certainly
• almost certainly not
• definitely
• maybe
• possibly/ probably not
• probably

 

• almost always
• almost never
• always
• never
• often
• rarely/ occasionally/ hardly ever
• sometimes
• usually/ normally/ typically

Brainstorm answers to these questions, then check above:

How beautiful is it?

 

 

 

 

How do you feel about…?

 

 

 

 

How likely?

 

 

 

 

How many?/ How much?

 

 

 

 

How often?

 

 

 

 

What percentage?

 

 

 

 

Pronunciation

The list above doesn’t include the common word “quite” because it has two different meanings. However, those two different meanings have two different intonation patterns. Try to pronounce them in both of those ways and/ or listen to other people and say what the meaning is each time.

It’s quite pretty. = It’s fairly pretty./ It’s quite gorgeous. = It’s absolutely gorgeous.

It’s quite important. = It’s fairly important./ It’s quite important. = It’s very important.

Which meaning and pronunciation is the only one that can go with extreme adjectives like “exorbitant” (meaning very expensive), “excruciating” (meaning very embarrassing) and “stuffed” (meaning very full).

 

Generalising about festivals and celebrations practice

Try to agree on things related to festivals and celebrations using questions like those below, remembering things that you agree on to share with the class later.

Useful phrases for discussing rankings Ø  How about you? Ø  Exactly./ I totally agree. Ø  I wouldn’t go that far. I’d say that… Ø  I’d go even further and say that…

 

• How boring is…?
• How common is…?
• How do you feel about…?
• How embarrassing is…?
• How expensive is…?
• How full are you after…?
• How fun is…?
• How important is…?
• How keen are you on…?
• How long is…?
• How many people…?
• How many… are there during…?
• How much do you dislike…?
• How much do you like…?
• How much do you spend…?
• How much drinking is there during…?
• How much food… during…?
• How much money do people tend to spend on…?
• How much… is there during…?
• How often do people avoid…?
• How often do people…?
• How traditional is…?
• How typical is…?
• How uncomfortable does… make you feel?
• How unusual is…?
• How’s the atmosphere during…?
• How’s the food during…?
• How (adjective) does… make you feel?
• How (adjective) is…?