Immigrants from Northern and Western Europe.In the 1820’s many people in Europe, suffering from poverty, war and discrimination, began emigrating to the United States. They hoped for better opportunities in the United States. During the first half-century, most immigrants came from the countries of north-western Europe-Germany, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Sweden and Norway. During these years the United States was expanding in to what is now the Midwest. The Midwest had a lot of land good for farming. That’s why many new immigrants became farmers in the Midwest. Even today, German and Scandinavian influence is felt in Midwestern foods and festivals. Immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe. Between the 1870’s and the 1930’s many immigrants came to the United States from the countries of southern and eastern Europe-Italy, Greece, Poland and Russia. The United States was now developing into a mainly industrial country. Much of the farmland in the Midwest had been settled, so the new wave of immigrants moved to cities and worked in factories. Hispanic-Americans. Hispanics are people whose ancestors were Spanish or Spanish-Americans. Some Hispanics had lived in the areas which were under Spanish control, and found themselves living in the United States when these areas became part of the United States (for example California and New Mexico). Many other Hispanics immigrated to the United States from many different countries, mostly from Mexico, Puerto Rico and Cuba. Asian-Americans. In the 19th and 20th centuries many immigrants came to the United States From different Asian countries (China, Japan, The Philippines, Korea, Vietnam, India and others). They have settled mostly in California, Hawaii, New York and Texas. Control questions: 1. Where did the first people come to Americans from? When was it? 2. When did the first British settle in America? 3. What does “yankee” mean? 4. How did African appear in America? 5. What is the position of the black population in today’s America? 6. Why did many immigrants become farmers in the Midwest? 7. Who are Hispanic-Americans? 8. What parts of the United States did the Asian immigrants settle in? 14- Lecture. Theme: How they live (culture, leisure, holidays) Plan:1.The way of life 2. Culture. Leisure. Entertainment. 3. Holidays The aim of the lecture:To get acquainted with the way of life of American people, their culture, holidays.
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The content of the lecture: The way of life There have been many changes in the way of life of American families in the past 20 or 30 years. Many young people don’t hurry to get married, and when they do get married, they don’t hurry to have children. Quite often a woman has her first child only when she is past thirty. Also, families don’t have so many children as was traditional before. Today most families have only one or two children. In a traditional family the husband worked and earned money, and the wife stayed at home with the children. This tradition is now changing. Many married women work, like their husbands. There are two reasons for this new tradition. One reason is that women also want to have careers, like men. The other reason is the necessity of earning a living: prices have risen, and as a result families cannot survive when only one member of the family works. The divorce rate is very high in the United States. About half of married couples end in divorce. The result of this high divorce rate is that many American children see their fathers (or mothers) only occasionally. Rather often divorced people get married again. So a new kind of family has appeared- a family in which the children have different fathers or mothers. In the past it was traditional for three generations – grandparents, parents and children- to live together, now many elderly people prefer living separately from their grown-up children. Both elderly and young people find it convenient, though, living separately, the older and the younger generation usually maintain a friendly contact with each other.
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