On October 31st, Halloween is celebrated in all English-speaking countries. The Bilingual Programme wanted our students to reflect on this ancient tradition that dates back to the Celts. Keep on reading to know more about what our students did...
Halloween is an originally Irish and Scottish tradition that has expanded over the centuries to become the almost worldwide celebration we all know about today. However, the origins of Halloween had nothing to do with the consumerism we all associate to this celebration nowadays, and we wanted to make sure our students learned about this. Thus, the students from 3rd ESO had to research in groups so as to explain in class, as part of an oral test in the English lesson, what they had found out about the evolution of Halloween and different traditions related to it.
As a result, we created a timeline of the history of Halloween and different bulletin boards about traditions such as costume wearing, recipes, the legend of Jack O' Lantern... All these projects were hanged on a wall in one of the high school's corridors, so that the rest of the school community could also learn about this interesting topic.
Collaborating with the Reading Programme
The Reading Programme in high school organised a project among the different departments with the aim of reflecting on the Spanish tradition of All Saints' Day. Therefore, students were encouraged to create bulletin boards and other projects joining the traditions of this celebration and the contents of the different subjects. This way, they made tombs of famous mathematicians, research on Egyptian or Muslim burials, etc.
Some of the departments involved in the Bilingual Programme contributed to this activity by making all these projects in English. You can have a look at all these works below.
All in all, this has been a very rewarding experience for students and teachers, as it has offered all of them the opportunity of researching together about both the Spanish tradition of All Saints' Day and that of Halloween.