Hey there,
Are you still looking for the perfect festive resource for your students? Now that the countdown till Christmas has started, you can enjoy preparing for the holidays and know that you've got the right materials for your students. In this post I've got a few festive suggestions for you:
#1 Christmas ads
I love Christmas ads. How about you? Even though I'm not a TV fan, I always make sure I check the new ads at the beginning of December to bring some novelty into my lessons. This year I've got two favourite ones:
Unexpected guest
How am I going to use this ad? First I will tell my students they'll see a short video with the title "Unexpected guest" and will ask them to make a guess who the guest could be. Then I'll play the video until 0:13 so that they can check their answers.
Afterwards I'll ask them to predict how the boy will react after he sees that the guest is an alien. Once all the answers are collected, I'll play the rest of the video to see what happens.
I'm sure this touching advert will spark a good discussion so we may answer some of these questions:
Why didn't the boy introduce the girl to his family?
Why do you think he decides to show her the Christmas star first?
The boy shares the delicious mince pies with the girl. If you were to give some festive food to an alien, what would you choose? How would you describe the taste?
What games would you introduce to your new friend?
As a follow up activity, I suggest you ask your students to imagine an alien has paid them a visit on Christmas Day. They have to introduce one thing the alien can see related to Christmas, one thing that can be touched/smelt/tasted/heard. Encourage them to make their descriptions sensory bearing in mind the alien has never had such an experience before.
2. Erste Christmas Ad 2021
This beautiful advert is a wonderful reminder that we should make eco-friendly choices every day.
That's how I intend to use it:
I'll ask the students what small choices we can make in our daily lives in order to stop climate change.
Then I'll play the video to see what ideas it illustrates.
After discussing them with the students, I'd love to hear what they think the message behind the video is.
Finally, I'll ask them to come up with different ways we could celebrate an environmentally-friendly Christmas.
Here are some ideas:
-use natural materials to wrap your gift;
-make your own gift- bake some mince pies, for example;
-repurpose old gift bags;
-shop locally;
- make a beeswax wrap. You can see how here.
#2 Wake up your students' senses with the power of visualisations
Use my sensory "Sights and sounds of Christmas" bundle, which offers 2 visualisation-based lessons and another one based around a short video.
#3 Step into the magic of Christmas
And for those of you, who prefer General English Lesson plans, there’s always my collection “Step into the Magic of Christmas”, which includes:
3 lesson plans
a reading activity
writing prompts
resources for young learners
some extra fun activities
Subscribe to the updates of the website here
in order to receive positive teaching tips
and lesson plans every month.
Happy holidays,
Marusya Price
