Hanukkah Presentation!

 Level: Multiple

I was asked by many teachers to do a holiday season presentation, and because my wife and I are Jewish, I decided to focus the entire presentation on Hanukkah. As I anticipated, because of the hundreds of years of very low Jewish presence and visibility in Spain following the edict of expulsion in 1492, most students had never heard of Hanukkah and were unfamiliar with basic ideas about Judaism in general. Because of this, my presentation started with a brief overview of the history of the Jewish community in the United States and an introduction to basic Jewish vocab, like "Hebrew," "Torah," "Rabbi," and "Synagogue." After the overview, I explained what Hanukkah is holistically, covering the story, the traditions, the food, and the activities. I employed several videos throughout. In general, I was very impressed by the students' level of respect and engagement with the presentation! Because I was teaching the same topic to a variety of English levels, ranging from very low to bilingual, I had to constantly adjust the curriculum, change my focus dramatically from class to class (e.g. focusing mostly on basic vocab in lower level classes vs. having complex discussions about the Jewish lunar calendar in others.) This kept me on my toes and was great practice.

Here's the link: Happy Hanukkah!