[00:08.39]Lesson 29 1. Read and act
[00:14.94]Would you like to come to my home on Thursday evening?
[00:20.30]Sure.What have you planned?
[00:24.66]My mom's having some of our friends over for Thanksgiving.
[00:30.54]Um,what's that?
[00:34.38]It's a very special American holiday.
[00:39.24]We celebrate it on the fourth Thursday of November.
[00:44.41]What do you do to celebrate it?
[00:48.67]We give thanks to God for all that we have got.
[00:53.52]It's also a time for family and friends to get together.
[00:58.78]So it's a little like the Chinese New Year. Yeah,that's right.
[01:04.94]I suppose there will be lots of food.
[01:09.38]Yes,more than you can eat. Great.
[01:14.14]I've always wanted to try traditional American food.
[01:19.60]What time should I be there? Is 6:30 OK?
[01:24.95]That's fine. Thanks.See you then. See you.
[01:30.91]2.Read and act
[01:35.35]Hi,Mum.Gee,something smells good. nI'm cooking the turkey for dinner.
[01:42.43]Do you need any help?
[01:45.67]Thanks.I could use a bit of help.
[01:50.21]Why don't you set the table for me?
[01:54.44]All right.Shall I put spoons with the knives and forks?
[02:00.08]Of course,sweetie.We'll need them for the cranberry dish.
[02:05.73]OK.Anything else you need? No,that's all.
[02:15.60]Lesson 30
[02:18.66]2. Read Give a title for this story.
[02:24.22] Americans have been celebrating Thanksgiving
[02:29.37]in one way or another since the 1600s.
[02:35.32]However,this holiday wasn't really celebrated in the modern way until the 1890s.
[02:44.18]At that time,the leaders were searching for a holiday
[02:49.74]that could bring the people together as one nation,
[02:54.79]especially new immigrants from abroad.
[02:59.51]Some leaders tried to change the true history of the first Thanksgiving
[03:05.89]more that a little bit.
[03:09.23]They wrote about how the English settlers found friendship with the Indians
[03:15.79] who they met in the new land called America.
[03:20.96]They said that the settlers and the Indians were like brothers and sisters.
[03:27.73]These leaders also described the first Thanksgiving meal
[03:34.20]as one cooked by the settlers for their guests,the Indians.
[03:39.95]So it seemed that the settlers and the Indians lived happily together.
[03:46.12] Sadly,some of what Americans were told was really just a myth.
[03:52.78]Soon after the first Thanksgiving,
[03:57.04]the Indians began to have problems with the settlers.
[04:02.21]Some of the settlers had strange diseases that killed many of the Indians.
[04:08.87]The settlers,who had a strong belief in God,
[04:14.15]wanted to teach their religion to the Indians.
[04:18.87]Most of the Indians,however,weren't interested in it.
[04:24.02]About twenty years after the first settlers arrived in New England,
[04:30.26]fighting often broke out between the settlers and the Indians.
[04:36.32]The settlers took most of the land from the people
[04:41.18]they had once called their friends.
[04:45.15]Many of the Indians who were still alive ran away
[04:50.19]to live with French settlers in Canada.
[04:54.56]Some were not so lucky.
[04:58.32]They were sold as slaves in the south of the country.
[05:03.46] However,the story is not all sad.
[05:08.22]In fact,the first Thanksgiving was a time of celebration.
[05:14.46]William Bradford,one of the leaders of the settlers,
[05:20.13]invited an Indian named Squanto and his family to dinner.
[05:25.98]These Indians had helped the settlers to become better farmers.
[05:31.73]The Indian leader,his family and many others were also invited.
[05:38.39]Everyone gave thanks for a successful harvest
[05:43.25]and ate a great feast for three days.
[05:48.00]Today,Thanksgiving lasts only one day
[05:53.36]but American families still get together every autumn to give thanks
[06:00.12]and have a big meal with friends and neighbours.
[06:05.58]Lesson 31 1. Read and answer
[06:16.14]You may be surprised to learn
[06:20.08]that some Indian groups had six Thanksgiving festivals every year
[06:26.32]The first was in early February.
[06:30.40]It celebrated the harvest of a juice from special trees.
[06:36.04]The second took place in the early spring.
[06:40.30]It celebrated the planting of seeds in the ground.
[06:45.37]The third Thanksgiving was celebrated in the late spring
[06:51.01]for the first fruit of the season.
[06:55.09]The next was in the summer to give thanks for the corn.
[07:00.05]The fifth festival came in late autumn to celebrate the harvest.
[07:06.81]The last took place during the winter so give thanks for another safe year.
[07:16.48]Lesson 32 2.Dictation
[07:22.44]1 This is an Indian prayer of thanks.
[07:28.21]Listen to the tape as you read the text and write in the missing words.
[07:34.66]2.Form a small group and read the text aloud.
[07:40.33]Then choose one person to read it to the rest of your class.
[07:46.68]Gwa!Gwa!Gwa! Now the time has come!
[07:53.84]Hear us,Great Father of the Sky!
[07:58.98]We are here to () the truth,for you want only truth.
[08:06.53]We are your children,Great Father of the Sky.
[08:12.09]Now begins our ().
[08:16.35]With this fire and smoke we () our prayers to you.
[08:23.33]Now in teh beginning you () us with all we need on earth.
[08:30.38]You said:I shall make the earth for the people to live on.
[08:37.15]They shall look to the earth as their mother and they shall say,
[08:43.81]"It is she who gives us much."
[08:48.07]We are ( ) for the earth and each other.
[08:53.32]So this is why we have come her today to give you thanks.
[08:59.48]Now see the smoke from the ().
[09:04.21]It rises high into the sky.
[09:08.86]We will eat food from our hard work.
[09:14.03]You have given us a world to grow many things.
[09:19.59]You give us the () corn. It keeps us ().
[09:26.26]Now it grows colder.
[09:30.33]But it will be warm again in the spring and life will return to us.
[09:37.59]We ( ) you and we are thankful.
[09:42.32]The () from the fire rises again.See the () and hear our words.
[09:51.15]4.Read
[09:54.81]Many,many years ago,Sister Corn wanted to bring more pleasure to her people.
[10:01.47]She had already made the shoes they wore.
[10:05.73]Now she wanted to make something different.
[10:09.99]So she asked the Great Spirit if she could make little people of corn husk.
[10:15.94]The Great Spirit agreed.
[10:19.42]Then Sister Corn began the hard work and made a very beautiful young corn woman.
[10:26.78]One day this woman went into the forest and looked at herself in a clear lake.
[10:33.03]She saw how beautiful she was and become very proud and naughty.
[10:39.29]Soon people became unhappy,
[10:44.26]so the Great Spirit told the woman not to be so proud,but she didn't listen.
[10:50.81]The Great Spirit decided to teach her a lesson:
[10:55.46]she would have no face,nor could she talk to the people,
[11:01.50]the birds,or the animals of the forest.
[11:06.64]She must walk around the earth forever looking for something to do
[11:12.29]to get her lovely face back again.
[11:16.65]To this day,the Indian people do not put any face on their corn husk dolls |