5 Fun & Festive ESL Activities

So by now, you’ve untangled your lights, taken your baubles from storage, found Christmas decorations you’d forgotten you had and admired your Christmas tree from outside. You’ve filled your trolley with festive goodies and sung along to Christmas tunes in the never-ending queues.

What else do you need to do? It’s time to start thinking about that Christmas lesson to really get you and your students in the festive mood.

There are SO many fun and festive ESL activities you can do that students of all ages will love. Why not try out some of these and let us know how they go…

1. Make Christmas Cards!

So you’re probably thinking ‘But I have adult students and this is more of a young learner / teenage activity’……try it with your adults! They’ll love it.

Bring in a few examples of different types of cards and get feedback on style, design, the type of person who would like this card, the poem on the inside etc.

After a short discussion on Christmas card traditions, put students into groups of 3, give them some coloured paper and markers and watch their imaginations take on a new lease of life in front of your very eyes.

They will first need to discuss their ideas, their design and concept and then write a Christmas poem for the inside of the card too.

When they’ve finished, they write their card for one of the other groups with a nice, festive feel-good message….

And to top it all off, you can then do some error corrections on the board J

2. Write a Christmas Song!

Write 10 common Christmas words on pieces of paper and stick them up around the room. In pairs, ask your students to choose one of the words they both like and stand beside it. E.g. ‘Mistletoe’. If two pairs choose the same word, they will have to fight for it J

Now, each pair of students pairs up with another pair and discusses their word. ‘We have mistletoe. If you and another person stand under it, you have to kiss them.’ Students then discuss what kind of song they would like to write based around this word…… then write it!! Da-dah!! Festive fun, discussion and collaborative writing all in one Christmassy task! Don’t forget to get them to sing it afterwards

3. Make Christmas Gifts for the Class!

Hand out blank pieces of paper and ask each student to write one gift that they would be surprised to get this Christmas. Encourage your students to think big, e.g. A hot air balloon ride. Now, with their partner, they have to discuss why they would be surprised and how they would react if they received this gift.

Once all students have written one gift, collect the pieces of paper, shuffle them and get each student to take one of the pieces of paper (without seeing what’s written on it). Now, ask students to discuss their gifts with their partners. Would they like to receive this gift?

Get feedback and write each gift on the whiteboard. Now in small groups, ask your students to decide on one of the gifts for each student in the class and explain their choice.

4. The Christmas Mime

Add a Christmas theme to the popular mime game. Prepare slips of paper with Christmas activities on them. E.gswrapping a present, opening a present, building a snowman, pulling a cracker, eating Christmas dinner, meeting the family etc. Ask a volunteer to come forward to choose a slip of paper and do the first mime for the class. With each correct answer (full sentence if practicing present continuous) you get another student to come forward.

You could also do this in groups of four students, giving the group a set of mime cards and in turn, they mime the action for the group. Why not make it competitive too, awarding points for each correct guess?

5. Hi Santa!

Explain to students that they are going to Interview a very famous person today and they should be very excited. Ask one of your more outgoing students to step outside the class so that he/she doesn’t realise what character they are about to play. Inform the rest of the class that in a couple of minutes, Santa is going to walk in and they should ask him some questions about Christmas. Introduce ‘Santa’ to the class when the student returns. Now, students get to ask 3 questions and the student must try to use their imagination to answer. If you’d rather not put one student on the spot, you could try this in small groups, assigning one ‘Santa’ to each group and then after 5 minutes, change the character! The next character could be ‘Rudolph’ and the next ‘a snowman’. The students will have great fun and it’s great for reviewing question forms.

If you have any other ideas for festive ESL activities, please share them below. We’d love to hear what you are doing in your classrooms this Christmas…