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Thanksgiving Day

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Is there is any other so special national day for the Americans?  Thanksgiving is one of the most important events for the American people. For many of them, this holiday is even more important than Christmas in the United States, but do we know why? How this day has become an icon for the American culture? Let's go deeply into the origins of  the Thanksgiving day. This pagan event  can be traced back to the 1621 celebration at the Plymouth Plantation, where the religious refugees from England, known popularly as the Pilgrims, invited the local Native Americans to a harvest feast after a particularly successful growing season. The previous year's harvests had failed and in the winter of 1620, half of the pilgrims had starved to death. Luckily for the rest, members of the local Wampanoag tribe taught the Pilgrims how to grow corn, beans and squash, catch fish, and collect seafood. There are only two contemporary accounts of the 1621 Thanksgiving, but it's clear tha

Halloween

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      Halloween is an annual holiday, celebrated each year on October 31st, that has roots in age-old European traditions. It originated with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, when people would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off ghosts.       In the 18th century, Pope Gregory III designated November 1st as a time to honour all saints; soon, All Saints Day incorporated some of the traditions of Samhain. The evening before was known as All Hallows Eve, and later Halloween.       Over time, Halloween evolved into a day of activities like trick-or-treating and carving jack-o-lanterns. Around the world, as days grow shorter and nights get colder, people continue to usher in the season with gatherings, costumes and sweet treats.       If you are interested on some more intormation about this festivity, perhaps, you should have a look on the following website: http://www.halloween-website.com/ It is a must to be aware about the most important traditions in English speaking

E-PAL

An e-pal is a person that you make friends with by e-mail or social media, often somebody you have never met. Having this kind of friend gives you the opportunity of communicating with someone in English in a real background. This provides you with the necessary strategies for an information exchange in a Second Language. Here you are a safe site for this purpose:  https://www.epals.com/#/connections

On-line resources

Sometimes we need an extra-help to review the grammar points already studied in class, some others, it is necessary to check the most important vocabulary words related to specific topics we work during the year.  If you need this kind of extra activities and explanations, you will enjoy the following web-site:  http://www.autoenglish.org/freeexercises.htm

Other resources: Dictionary

improving listening

As a matter of fact, you always complain about the difficulties of finding resources to practice your listening skills. Surfing the net, I have found a blog I want to recommend you for this purpose. Please, try it and tell me how useful it is: listening resources