КЛАССНЫЙ ЧАС - ШУТКА APRIL FOOL’S DAY
классный час по английскому языку на тему

КЛАССНЫЙ ЧАС - ШУТКА APRIL FOOL’S DAY

Классный час проводится в начале 4 четверти и посвящен он Дню смеха. К этому дню ученики готовят смешные истории, рассказывают анекдоты, приносят юмористические картинки. Учитель может подготовить следующий плакат

The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year” Mark Twain.

T: Today we are going to have fun with you because now is the first of April and as you know this day is called April Fool’s Day. We can’t say that it’s an official holiday but people all over the world like it very much and celebrate in their own way. And today we speak with you about this holiday. What do you know about it?

PI: I want to notice that April Fool’s Day is a fun day when people play tricks and make fun of each other. People like these jokes and laugh heartily even if some tricks have made April fools on them. Children especially like this day. But no one is sure how April Fools’ Day got started.

T: Very good. I see you like this day.

P2: As for me I like it too. Normally called «April Fools’ Day», this day falls on 1 April. It is a day when you can light-heartedly make fools of your family, friends and collegues by playing tricks on them. People send messages intended to mislead, offer take food, create realistic-looking blood stains and devise a host of other deceptions to fool the gullible. But you should remember that the joke, however, must be received or believed by midday otherwise it is the joker and not the victim who becomes the fool.

T: Right you are. It’s a very interesting and useful information. You should remember it. But every holiday has its own history. Do you know anything about the history of April Fool’s Day?

P3: As far as I remember unlike most of the other “nonfoolish” holidays, the history of April Fool’s Day, sometimes called All Fool’s Day, is not totally clear. The most recent point in time that can identified as the beginning of this tradition was in 1582 in France. Prior to that year, the new year was celebrated for eight days, beginning on March 25. The celebration culminated on April 1. With the reform of the calendar under Charles IX, the Gregorian Calendar was introduced, and the New Year’s Day was moved to January 1. However, communications being what they were in the days when the news travelled by foot, many people did not receive the news for several years and continued to celebrate the New Year on April 1. These backward folk were labeled as “fools” by the general population. They were sometimes subject to ridicule and were made the buff of practical jokes.

P4: May be you are right but have this information. Some people think that trick days began in India. People there celebrate a spring holiday called Holi. A favourite trick on Holi is to fill a bamboo pipe with coloured powder and blow the powder at people. Sometimes children fill the pipe with water and squirt each other.

T: It’s all right. Different books give different information. But I’m very glad that you know it. I must say that April Fool’s Day developed into an international fun fest.

P5: It’s interesting that even newspapers, television and radio programmes join in the fun, publishing and broadcasting amusing and unlikely tales. A few years ago, “The Guardian newspaper” published a whole supplement about a fictious group of islands called San Serif, with articles on the economy, climate, political situation, weather, etc.

T: Each country celebrate this day differently. We have some guests from different countries. They are going to tell us about their national peculiarities of this day celebration. Let me introduce them. This is our guests from France. England, Scotland, Portugal and America.

У учащихся прикреплены бэджи с названиями той страны, которую они представляют. Они рассказывают об особенностях празднования Дня смеха в их стране и дополняют свой рассказ какими-нибудь смешными историями из своей жизни.

French pupil: April Fool’s Day in our country is called “April Fish ' (Poisson d’Avril). The French fool their friends by taping a paper fish to their friend’s backs and when some discover this trick, they yell “Poison d’Avril!"

English pupil: Tricks can be played only in the morning. If a trick is played on you? you are a “noodle”. And I want to add that the English usually make fun of the Scots making them out to be overly patriotic and ver. ‘spendthrift’.

I want to add that young people in particular love April Fool’s Day and teachers in Britain know to be on their guard throughout the day! Many adults also enjoy the fun. The most famous April Fools’ joke was perpetrated by the BBC’s highly-regarded television documentary programme “Panorame" The programme presented an apparently serious report about spaghen growing on trees in Italy. It examined the problem of cultivating and harvest ini spaghetti and included interview with spaghetti farmers.

Scots pupil: April Fool’s Day is actually celebrated for two days. Th: second day is devoted to pranks involving the posterior region of the body. Ii is called Taily Day. The origin of the ‘kick me’ sign can be traced to his observance English people really like to make fun of us. For example they say that Scotsmen sometimes take their wives’ false teeth to work with them every day to stop the eating between meals. Or another joke. True Scotsmen hate to see waste, matter where in the world they see it. A Scotsman travelling in Egypt said, seeing the Pyramids, “What damn fool built those useless thing?” Ano' remarked that the Niagara Falls were a perfect waste and that there was plum in Dundee that could fix them in half an hour.

But we think it’s not true. It’s only a joke.

Pupil from Portugal: April Fool’s is celebrated on the Sunday and Monday before Lent. The traditional trick is to throw flour at your friends.

American pupil: People play small tricks on friends and strangers alike on the first of April. One common trick is pointing down at a friend’s shoe and saying, “Your shoelace is untied”. Whatever the prank, the trickster usually ends it by yelling to his victim, “April Fool”. I want to say some words about Mark Twain. He liked to play jokes on his friend very much. One day in a train a friend of his asked him to get a ticket. His friend had no money. Mark Twain explained that you hadn’t enough money to buy two tickets and advised his friend to sit under his bench in the train. And his friend did so. But when the conductor came, Mark Twain gave him two tickets and said, “My friend is a very funny man. He does not like to sit on the bench, he likes to sit under the bench”.

T: Very interesting story. Thank you very much. Do you like this day? How do you celebrate it? What jokes do you play? Do you like to play tricks on your friends?

PI, P2, P3 . ..

T: Practical jokes are common for April Fool’s Day. For centuries, one of the most popular jokes of this day has been to send someone out on a ‘fool errand’. The idea behind this is that in order to succeed, the person on the ‘fool errand’ has to ask others for help on the way. However, everyone else usually recognizes the trick before they do!

Now imagine that all of you are journalists who have been set the task of thinking up a joke new story. Y ou can even find some true and your friends have to guess which story is true and which is made up. I give you 5 minutes for thinking.

PI, P2, P3 . . .

T: I see you like jokes very much and you play good tricks on your friends. I think we enjoy ourselves and each other today. Thank you very much for your good jokes.