Tag Archives: Christmas

A Simple Activity to Get Started after the Christmas Break

General, , , , ,

Back to normal after the Christmas break and looking for ideas to get students  back into the mood, my faithful companion The Wheel of Fortune is again unfailingly helping me to provide, with almost no effort, an engaging activity to get started: grammar and vocabulary will probably follow, but let’s start off on the right foot.

So, I have in mind a warm-up activity that gets students out of their seats (have they even had time to sit down?) while animatedly sharing their experiences during their Christmas break.

How to go about it:

  1. I filled the wheel with some questions from the Internet TESL Journal
  2. After the mandatory welcome-back salutation, I asked my students to stand up (initial sceptical look assured, so please, don’t be discouraged and insist with your sweetest voice)and occupy the space in the middle of the class or any other free space available in your classroom. Ask them to choose a partner.
  3. Spin the wheel and ask them to talk about the randomly chosen question with their partner. Allow them 2 or 3 minutes to discuss the question. Use a  classroom timer to add more fun and excitement.
  4. Ask them to change partners and spin the wheel again.

Note: this is a warm-up activity, so I’ll keep it going for just about 15 minutes.

Now, that they are right where I want them, let’s begin this new term.

Photo: Greg Lonbinsk

 

Listening: Kids around Christmas Time

Listening, , , ,

I am in Christmas mode. My class already has a Christmas tree  decorated with white stars, some silver baubles  and not a trace of tinsel- I don’t like tinsel. Christmas carols  are already playing in my hi-fi and I am trying to figure out what to cook for Christmas Eve and Christmas day without ending up dead tired and falling asleep in the middle of the dinner.

So, fully into Christmas mode,  I have chosen these two clips from The Cosby Show  to help my intermediate students get into the mood  and  improve their listening skills, too 😉 Hope it serves both purposes!

I wish this show was still on air. For me, it is probably one of the best sitcoms ever  and the scenes with Olivia among my favourites.

 

What Race is Santa Claus?.  I would suggest playing the video once  without bothering with the listening task .Watch it on youtube here

Kids at Christmas Time. Again, I would suggest playing the video once  without bothering with the listening task. Watch it on youtube here

Happy, happy Christmas!!!

General

Now , guys, here it comes again! This time of the year when I feel torn apart between my desire to celebrate all the good things life has given me and all the things life has taken away from me (shall I say “people”?).
So I can never guess what my mood is going to be like when I write my Christmas post ; sometimes it is a tearjerker ( most of the times) and sometimes I am just the biggest fan of these holidays.
But this year I feel  my mood is going to be quite festive and I have even promised myself I’ll try my hardest to wear my sweatpants only when going to the gym and to dress up in sequins whenever the occasion demands it ; to be nice , polite and kind towards everybody, to struggle not to speak my mind even though the occasion might require it and to try to understand  that though everybody has a table and chairs at home to rotate the family gathering , it is me everybody loves and that must be the reason why year after year everybody decides to celebrate all the gatherings in my blessed house where ,it goes without saying, my dear mother gently suggests that I use my best wedding presents to decorate the table even though she knows I won’t be able to put them in the washing machine and I’ll have to spend hours washing everything up!!
So, after so much giving and giving I’ve decided, these holidays, to treat myself to some getting and getting. (prompt… this is where you need to watch the video ) and this is where the photo of my kitchen window applies.

Christmas is a mere four days away and I want to wish you the best of Christmas and advise you to treat yourselves once or twice during these holidays. You deserve it, don’t you?
Happy, happy Christmas!!! And please, enjoy every minute because life … is just this!

Christmas Decoration for my Classroom and for my Home

General, Students' Corner, ,

Well, folks! With only a fortnight to go before Christmas Eve I can safely say that the holidays are upon us and it’s time to start decorating. Below I have posted two presentations . The first one is for inexpensively decorating our  classroom .Big fun! (I have used the tool  Slide.ly , which I highly recommend because it’s free and easy to use).  In the second presentation I have included ideas to decorate the house and to dress our Christmas tables.Hope you like them! And …a big thank you to my students ,who have enthusiastically helped me decorate.

 

 

Classroom Decoration by Slidely Slideshow