1. Give them a Thanksgiving quiz– not for marks, but just to see how much they know about the holiday. You can find Thanksgiving quizzes online – you may have to simplify them, or write your own. If you don’t think your students know enough about Thanksgiving to take a quiz without getting discouraged, start the class by brainstorming what they do know about it. Either way, you’ll know where to focus.
2. Ask them about fall festivals in their cultures. You and they may both be surprised how much their festivals have in common with Thanksgiving. Start by asking about fall holidays, not harvest festivals specifically – modern urbanites may not be aware of the agricultural origins of some holidays. How often do we remember that our kids get a long summer break so they can help us with the farming?
3. Show them what Thanksgiving looks like. Bring in supermarket flyers, seasonal paper plates and napkins, table decorations – anything that helps create a visual atmosphere.
4. Give them hands-on experience. Bring in a package of instant stuffing and base a reading or listening exercise on following the directions (see Zero Prep, by Laurel Pollard and Natalie Hess, for a good one called the acting-out dictacomp). You can have students mime making the stuffing, or maybe even make it for real if you have access to a kitchen.
5. Do a Thanksgiving craft – if the students won’t feel infantilized by it. (I could get away with this when my students were all parents of small children – we were doing it so they could teach their kids how.) Make it something simple, like a cookie turkey, and, again, use the directions as a reading or listening exercise.
6. Take time to teach them what they want to know. The students may know things about Thanksgiving that you wouldn’t expect – American culture is far-reaching in our world. On the other hand, they may have lived in their new country for years without picking up what you’d consider the basics of Thanksgiving. Set aside some time just to answer their questions, and be ready for anything.
7. Tell them what to expect, and what’s expected of them. Let them know, if they don’t already, that Thanksgiving Day is a stat holiday. It may be hard to find an open store on the big day – and if they have to work then, they have a right to extra pay. Homestay students need to know that their host families expect them for dinner, and are honoring them by including them.