Thanksgiving Speech

By Mark Bradt

First of all I want to thank you all for coming to the English Corner’s thanksgiving party. My name is Mark, and I am a tutor here at the corner. I am incredibly excited to be sharing this part of American culture with everyone here today. To start off, I would like to give you a little Thanksgiving history to better understand the relationship this holiday has with our culture. While Christmas and Easter are celebrated throughout western culture, Thanksgiving is solely an American holiday. The first Thanksgiving took place in 1621 Virginia by Pilgrims who were celebrating the harvest and giving thanks to their Christian God. Since then it has become a secular national holiday of giving thanks for what we all have and share. Families get together for a large dinner that consists of just as many recipes as America has families. Most often, large quantities of Turkey, mashed potatoes, and stuffing are eaten by all, before passing out in front of whatever football game happens to be on.

Mark says...

Last week the English corner had an excursion that took us all out to the traditional market road in Sheng Keng. It was a great opportunity for us to have an amazing cultural experience and bond together as a group. All of us who work in the English corner tend to run on very tight schedules, and at first I was worried that I didn’t really have the energy to support the levels of enthusiasm I felt the trip warranted. Luckily for me, the energy coming from our students and teachers rubbed off on me as soon as we boarded the bus.