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Trick or Treat!

Learn Halloween vocabulary

Date: Oct 29 2010

Themes: Holidays

Grammar: First Conditional

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Intro

1. Learn Vocabulary - Learn some new vocabulary before you start the lesson.

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2. Read and Prepare - Read the introduction and prepare to hear the audio.

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This Sunday is Halloween and there are really two separate Halloweens in the U.S. There’s the Halloween for adults, which is basically an excuse to party while wearing a crazy costume. For kids, Halloween is one of the most exciting days of the year. Not only do they get to dress up as their favorite superhero or fairy princess, but it’s also the only day they get to go door-to-door and demand that strangers give them candy. But as Dale explains, trick-or-treating can be fun for grown-ups, too. Listen to him talk with Mason about one of his favorite holidays.

Dialog

1. Listen and Read - Listen to the audio and read the dialog at the same time.

2. Study - Read the dialog again to see how the vocab words are used.

Mason

Dale

Mason: How old were you when you stopped trick-or-treating?

Dale: 35.

Mason: Is that with your kid, though?

Dale: It basically is with my kid. But still, I love to trick or treat. I actually dressed up with him, and I was at the door holding my pumpkin too.

Mason: They give you, the adult, candy?

Dale: Of course they do! I’m trick-or-treating too! Let’s go back. The word “trick or treat.” You always get a treat. Is there a trick?

Mason: No, you do the trick. Like it’s a threat. If they do not give you candy, you will do terrible things to them and/or their property.

Dale: Oh! I didn’t know what that meant. It’s so weird, because I always…I mean, for so long, I’ve always said “trick or treat,” but what if they choose the trick? Now I get it.

Mason: Yes. You are threatening them. So, I don’t know, maybe we should re-brand trick-or-treating. It should be like “Candy, please.”

Dale: Candy, please.

Mason: Let’s teach manners this holiday season.

Dale: I enjoy dressing up, I enjoy doing this. I think there was that maybe 15 to 18 years age when I was too old to dress up. But as soon as 20, 21 came along, boom.

Mason: College dorms. I trick-or-treated at the dorms, man. You better believe it.

Dale: Trick-or-treating, yeah.

Grammar Point

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Quizzes

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Discussion

Go Super to Listen

When kids go trick-or-treating, they get dressed up in costumes and knock on strangers’ doors. When someone answers, they shout “trick or treat!” Then the stranger gives them candy, which they keep in a Halloween bag, or sometimes a plastic pumpkin.

Dale loves trick-or-treating. He has a young son who he goes trick-or-treating with, but it sounds like he would enjoy trick-or-treating whether or not he had a kid.

But even though he loves Halloween, Dale didn’t know what the phrase “trick or treat” meant. He thought it meant that the stranger at the door could choose to give either a trick or a treat. Mason explains that “trick or treat” is actually a threat. It means, “Give me a treat or I’ll play a trick on you.” Luckily, it’s usually an empty threat.

Have you ever gone trick-or-treating? Do people celebrate Halloween in your country?

Comments

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thecrazybuffalo

Viet Nam

I love Halloween day, I wish some thing good will appear in that day :P

razzaghi

Iran, Islamic Republic Of

we had the same thing in our country but that is almost abolished nowdays. in a night in the end week of ramadan we used to gather with other childs then we used to go to knock the door of stranger people and song a poem, they gave us candy, sweets, coin…

at the end the elder child had to distribute the things were collected in the bag. good days we had!!!

qeeen_mooon

Bahrain

no i my country the go alaed and anasfa

they mean you go to the home and, click the door they oben to you. Then, they give you mony or sweet.

oddysee

Germany

In the last few years is this a great day in my country. All children love trick-or-treating.

indianeha64

India

i never heared about this before…....... but i think this is really a great fun to go door to door for"trick n treat"...........happy halloween day to all my frnds….........

HellenShen

China

There is no Halloween in China, so we don't say treat or trick. But I think it's very interesting. Happy Halloween Day to friends who will have it this Sunday.

largado

Brazil

i live in brazil, and in here we don't go at the people house and say: trick-or-treated…

but we dance a lot, there're a lot of party to go in this month…

so i dressed like the batman and go to the street to dance a lot….

luvik palestine

Palestinian Territory, Occupied

no we dont make Halloween in our country >>but we celebrate in eid and give candy to the children to be happy ..

Vinni Lima

Brazil

I've never practice trick-or-treating, unfortunately, because I really really would like to do this, I think it would be very great and fun, but in my country its not usually ..! hugs!!