Holidays - an approach to integrate American culture into the English lesson with special focus on Halloween

The cultural background in language teaching has recently moved to the foreground: there is a renewed interest and demand on the cultural issue. The fact that most students learn English during their school time makes it possible for teachers to help students to recognize the cultural diversities and similarities between the local and target culture. Not only the motivating topic of holidays can facilitate children to learn the language i na more interesting way,but also their practice skills can be improved, too. According to the investigation presented here pupils know little about American holidays. The present work aims to analyze pupils' knowledge about American holidays and the factors that influence the mincreating their points of view about American culture. Halloween, being one of the most 'children-based' holiday celebrated in the USA, was the best-known holiday by the pupils and therefore suitable for further investigation.