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As we talked about before there are lots of different traditions connected to Christmas and the holiday season.  Some of these traditions are very old and some of them are newer, some countries have taken, adapted and used other traditions to create a unique Christmas culture.

The topics that will be talked about in this Christmas session are:

The origins of Christmas,
Santa Claus,
Christmas Trees,
Christmas Stockings,
Mistletoe,
The Holly and the Ivy,
Poinsettias,
Candy Cane,
Christmas Cards,
Rudolph the Rednose Reindeer,
Hanukkah and Kwanzaa.

How many of these do you know about ? Why not join Lane Jarman and talk about your Christmas experience.  Sharing traditions is on December 25th at 6:00am PDT and 2pm UK at the Manor and is followed by Christmas Carols with Lane from 7am-8am (3pm UK).

So if you would like to sing again or missed the Carols by Candlelight, come along to the Manor and sing :-)

Carols are traditional songs that people sing at Christmas, they date back to the 13th century and each country has their own traditional songs and customs that they follow at Christmas time.

They are often sung at church services or in public places like the town square where everyone can join in.

On Wednesday 24th December there is a Carols by Candlelight event at English City where you can learn some carols and practice singing them with the Enlglish City People and other students.

To help you practice singing here are the words for my favourite Christmas carol – ‘Jingle Bells’ and you can sing along too with the video kareoke! Have fun and come and join us at the Carols by Candlelight on Christmas Eve.

Jingle Bells

Dashing through the snow
In a one-horse open sleigh
Through the fields we go
Laughing all the way.
Bells on bob-tail ring
Making spirits bright
What fun it is to ride and sing
A sleighing song tonight.

chorus:

Jingle bells, jingle bells
Jingle all the way,
Oh what fun it is to ride
In a one-horse open sleigh, O
Jingle bells, jingle bells
Jingle all the way,
Oh what fun it is to ride
In a one-horse open sleigh.

Vocabulary

Dashing : going very quickly
open sleigh : a type of vehicle that is pulled by horses over the snow
bob-tail : the horses tail
spirits : people’s emotions
jingle : to ring

Chris Teacher (a.k.a 'The Captain')

Do you like music? What kind of music do you listen to? How often do you listen to music? Here at LanguageLab one of our City People, Griffin Morrisey is a musician and composer.

Griffin does lots of activities which students trying to learn English find really helpful. Firstly, there is his regular sing along. Students who attend this activity find themselves learning new vocabulary and practicing their intonation by memorizing the words to a song and trying to sing along with it. People can be a little shy about singing in front of others at first. The shyness soon goes away though, because Griffin never forces anyone to sing if they don’t want to. Usually by the end of the session everyone is having such fun that they forget about their shyness and are happily ‘crooning’ away with the rest of the group. As you have probably already guessed, it’s also a great way to improve self-confidence.

Continue reading ‘Learning pronunciation through music’