Celebrating Memorial Day: Engaging ESL Students in American Traditions

Teaching ESL (English as a Second Language) students about American cultural traditions like Memorial Day is important because it helps them better understand the values, history, and social norms of the United States. By learning about the significance of Memorial Day—honoring those who have died in military service—students gain insight into the country's respect for service, patriotism, and collective memory. This cultural awareness not only deepens their language comprehension through relevant vocabulary and context but also fosters a sense of belonging and connection to the community. It also allows them to make connections back to their home country, as many countries have ceremonies to celebrate the military. Integrating cultural education with language learning enriches the overall experience and empowers ESL students to engage more fully in American society.

Celebrating our veterans and their contributions to safety and prosperity in the United States is an important part of the American cultural identity. Now what if I told you that you can introduce your ESL students to this tradition while simultaneously building their English vocabulary, reading, writing, and pronunciation skills? Win-win, right?

A few years ago, I felt bad that my MLs were constantly confused over why we had a long weekend for Memorial Day. They would ask me questions like "Why are there parades?" or "Why are people wearing pins of red flowers on their shirts?" These were really great questions and I did not want to dismiss them. I also wanted my studnets to feel included in the culture of their new country; after all, celebrating veterans is not unique to the U.S. Therefore, I decided to make an interactive Google Slides set on Memorial Day, specifically for ESL students.

Although I was I who made the product, the impetus and the guiding questions very much came from my own students. I think this makes this resource a calssroom must-have, because it was designed for ESL kids, and in a way, by ESL kids.

The resource is a set of Google Slides with mini readings, vocabulary practice, comprehension questions, and writing exercises. This resource allows you to teach about Memorial Day AND to have your English Language Learners to utilize multiple language domains.

This product includes the following activities:

• What is Memorial Day? reading and vocabulary translation activity

• Picture Prompt writing (2 slides)

• Vocabulary Matching (2 slides)

• Brain Break Word Search

• What Does the Red Flower Mean? reading and translation activity

• Making Sentence graphic organizer and writing activity (2 slides)

• The Start of Summer reading and translation activity

• Arlington National Cemetery mini text

• Tomb of the Unknown Soldier mini text

• Comprehension questions (3 slides)

• Partner Speaking Discussion with sentence frames
  

What's also great about this resource is that it hits upon multiple WIDA ELD standards at once (Standard 1: Social and Instructional Language, Standard 2: Language of Language Arts, and Standard 5: Language of Social Studies).

Click HERE to purchse this no-prep slide deck for your class!

If you are teaching about the military and veterans, you might also like my Veteran's Day Google Slides resource for ESL.