Christmas in America

Hello, let me present you Christmas in America as told by my 9th grade/Troisième students from last year. It always cracked me up that that would start EVERY presentation with the phrase "Let me present you," so I had to include that...

I'm pretty sure that last year I posted this same group's account of the Thanksgiving story on facebook. I forgot and never posted the Christmas one, so I might as well do it now because it's kind of adorable and hilarious. I taught a lesson about Christmas in America, and then for homework they all had to submit a paragraph summarizing my lesson.

I chose one sentence from every kid's paragraph to create this wonderful account of Christmas in America. Of course, I chose the funniest sentences. And of course, original spelling and grammar included. Their English was actually a lot better than this makes it appear, but they all had at least one crazy sentence.

My commentary in bold...

"Hello, let me present you Christmas in America. In USA, Christmas is good moment. Before Christmas and during all of December, people live in happiness. They go to mall for make shopping and by gifts to offer others. People are gathering in the neighborhoods and sing caroling door to door. They eat hot chocolate with marshmallows. (They all seemed weirded out by the concept of marshmallows? They had heard of them but never tasted them and they kept asking me about them)

People decorate the Christmas tree with the fairy lights, baubles, candy, and so one and so one. Childrens also like to build snowmans in the village under the snow! Some houses have a lot of lights because they are so very happy. In France, it’s crazy to do this. (I showed them a few pictures of houses that go all out with lights- you know, how's there's one crazy house in every neighborhood. They were a bit appalled by that haha)

Christmas traditions in America are very differents because people are differents heritages buts in every traditions Santa Claus coming to town. This is the best tradition of all because he is coming for give gifts! In commercial centers (the word for mall in French is centre commercial), childrens come to Santa’s lap and say at Santa what they will for Christmas. Don’t forget to let milk and cookies for Santa, because when he arrives on his sleigh and says “oh oh oh” (of course, if Santa was French he would say oh oh oh instead of ho ho ho because he wouldn't be able to pronounce h's, so this makes sense) at midnight, he must be very hungry!

On the 25 of December, families gather and eat a turkey in happiness. The most important moment of this feast is the log. The Americans also loves to eat foie gras and drinks champagne at this feast. To finish, I must say: HAVE A NICE CHRISTMAS!!" (This was my favorite part. These kids were just straight up writing about French Christmas traditions and clearly didn't know what they were talking about... unless any of you Americans out there actually have a Yule log (bûche de Noël) and are looking forward to some foie gras this holiday season...which I doubt :)  

Awww, little French kids. I miss you. This was such a fun job and your English is just cute. Sometimes very wrong, but cute.

Another thing we did for my Christmas lesson was to learn to Christmas carols in English. This was NOT my idea, but their teacher decided that they should split into groups and perform them for the class. And she wanted me to videotape them doing it haha. And she wanted them to dance while they did it. Poor 14 year olds. They already feel awkward about life.

I feel sort of guilty for posting these because I still feel bad that they had to do this, but... that's not going to stop me. Now you can get a glimpse of a few of my students, and some of the authors of the lovely text above. Note the difference in enthusiasm levels between the girls and the guys...

Again, this was such a great job! Being back in Strasbourg last week makes me nostalgic :)