Holidays

Your holiday lesson calendar

Plan a week or two ahead and pick from the month you need:

In February, Valentine's Day Ideas also works for students who don't like romance, and the 50 Valentine's Day conversation questions on our blog make an easy warm-up. For an ESL Easter lesson plan adults enjoy, What's In Your Easter Basket? suits A1-A2, and our blog has 20 Easter discussion questions for higher levels.

Each row has at least one lesson for beginners and one for higher levels, so you can teach the same holiday to different groups in the same week. For a Valentine's Day ESL lesson adults will enjoy, Galentine's Day is a speaking club about friendship and self-love, which works in any group. The holiday ESL lesson plans for adults on this page also make good last lessons before a break, when students are ready for something lighter.

Christmas and New Year lessons

December is the busiest month for holiday lessons, and a Christmas ESL lesson plan for adults can be much more than carols. Advent Calendars gives A1-A2 students simple opinions about the strangest calendars on sale. Christmas Songs, free to try, builds listening and festive vocabulary at A2-B1, and Christmas Food explores a traditional English Christmas dinner. Christmas Movies takes B2 students into the films everyone watches every year.

In January, New Year's Resolutions is free for A1-A2 students. For a New Year lesson plan ESL intermediate and advanced groups will enjoy, Year in Review is a reflective B2-C1 lesson, and New Year's Traditions compares how the world celebrates.

If you teach students who don't celebrate Christmas, the same lessons still work. Students compare the holiday with their own winter celebrations, talk about gifts and food, and give their opinion about how commercial the season has become.

Halloween, Thanksgiving and Black Friday

Autumn brings three holidays in a row. For Halloween, the free lessons Ghost Stories and Spooky Costume are the most popular, and the Halloween page has every Halloween lesson and worksheet from A1 to C1.

For a Thanksgiving ESL lesson plan for adults, Being Thankful gets A2-B1 students talking about gratitude, Thanksgiving Plans & Plates introduces the traditions and dishes at A1-A2, and Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade explores the famous parade at B2-C1. All Kinds of -givings compares family dinners, Friendsgiving and celebrating alone. In late November, Black Friday and Giving Tuesday lessons turn shopping into a discussion about spending and kindness.

These three holidays come close together, so many teachers plan them as one short series: Halloween at the end of October, Thanksgiving in the third week of November and a Black Friday debate just before the sales. Students meet the same vocabulary of food, family and shopping three times, and the series ends with a real event they can talk about the next day.

Speaking activities for any holiday

These ESL holiday speaking activities work with any celebration on the calendar:

• Compare traditions: pairs list three things their family always does on a holiday, then find one thing they share.
• The perfect gift: students choose a gift for a classmate with a fixed budget and explain their choice.
• Holiday debate: Halloween Canceled asks whether Halloween should be canceled, and Is It OK to Regift? turns gift-giving into an argument.

Keep holiday activities short and personal. Five minutes of comparing traditions at the start of class often leads to the best conversation of the week, because students teach each other something new about their own culture.

Holiday lessons FAQ

Do these lessons work if my students don't celebrate the holiday?

Yes. Students talk about the holiday as a tradition from another culture, compare it with their own celebrations and give opinions, so they don't need to celebrate it themselves.

When should I teach a holiday lesson?

One or two weeks before the date works best. Students are curious, and the vocabulary is useful straight away.

Are any of the lessons free?

Yes. Seven holiday lessons are free, including Ghost Stories, New Year's Resolutions, Christmas Songs and Valentine's Day Ideas.

Where are lessons about festivals around the world?

The culture page compares festivals and traditions from different countries. This page is organized by the calendar, so you can find the lesson you need for the next holiday.

All holiday ESL lesson plans for adults on this page come with a teacher subscription, together with the rest of the library.