Greetings to everyone It’s winter! What a magical time of year that inspires us to add a new layer of fun to our lessons. When the smell of gingerbread and tangerines is in the air, let’s dive into some fun Christmas-inspired EFL activities for your classroom. 
Amazing winter activities for teaching EFL/ESL No matter what your students’ level or age is, there are lots of fun activities that can either supplement a lesson or replace it while still meeting lesson aims. We hope that the ideas below will get you in the mood for the upcoming holidays! WINTER TALENT SHOW Have each student prepare a small reading, a song, a joke, etc. to perform in front of the entire class. Ideally, whatever the student brings to share will be inspired with a wintry element. Offer prizes to get more buy-in from students to do their best! CHRISTMAS MOVIE QUIZ All you need to do is download all the slides and put them into whatever program you use, KeyNote or PowerPoint. The aim of the game is to show the icons from famous Christmas movies first and get the teams to guess the movie. Team with the most points wins! ELF CHARADES Playing the game is simple! Print off the free printable game, cut out the charades, fold them (no peeking!), put them in a bowl and get ready to play. Split your group into two teams where each team takes turns choosing an actor to act out one of the charades randomly selected from the bowl. You’ll want a timer handy for this game too. CHRISTMAS DRAWING GAME This would be a great way to break the ice at any Christmas party or lesson. Students close their eyes and try to draw things which are being called out by the teacher. In the end, they get points for being accurate with their drawings. Whoever gets the most points gets a prize. Check here how to play and calculate the scores. WISHLISTS 1. Ask your students to choose 2-3 individuals in their life—maybe their parents, their grandparents, their siblings, their classmate, their teacher—and write what they think that individual would want for holiday presents! Have different students present their lists, or a few items from their list, in small groups. 2. Ask the students to play “Find someone who …” to find people with the same wish-lists by asking, “What would you like for Christmas?” Tell them to find, for example, 3 people who want the same things. CHRISTMAS MAD LIBS Divide into pairs (a great option for school/class parties) or have one person be the writer in a large group. The other person asks their partner (or the group) for the part of speech and fills in each blank as they give answers. Make sure they do not read the story to the partner before they give you the answers – that will ruin the fun! When each blank is filled out, read the silly story out loud and prepare to have some laughs! Download Christmas Mad Libs here. Watch how to play the game in a fun way here: 
FROSTY THE SNOWMAN RIGHT & LEFT GAME This game is a perfect way to do a gift exchange... It's also great as an icebreaker when you're giving out just a few prizes, just to start an event. To play the game, form a circle and pass the gift(s), (candy, prizes, etc.) to the right when you hear the word RIGHT and to the left when you hear the word LEFT. When the story is over, the gifts belong to whoever is holding them. As simple as that! You can download the story for you to print out and read here. WOULD YOU RATHER CHRISTMAS EDITION It’s a super simple game to play with kids, teens and adults. There is a series of silly questions that simply ask…’Would you rather?’ The very first thing you have to do is print out our Christmas Would You Rather Questions for kids. Then it’s time to get down to playing the game. Discussing what choice you make. Defending your decision. Some of the questions are pretty silly, so the decisions are sure to lead to lots of laughs. These questions are sure to spark some interesting debates. A simple way to bring a little holiday spirit into the classroom. CHRISTMAS WHO AM I Set a time limit and instruct the players to try to figure out what Christmas item or character is taped to their back by asking questions that require only a yes/no answer. One stipulation: they can only ask each person two questions and then they must move on to another person. This game is lots of fun and gets your entire group mingling! Download the cards here. WINTER EFL VIDEOS Videos work as an additional way to receive information. Since they often have a consistent story-line throughout, students are better able to understand and comprehend complex material. We also know nothing helps students learn a language more than engaging them in the culture. The more they care about the culture, the more they care about learning the language. The better they come to understand the culture, the more they will begin to understand the language. You will find out how to use ESL videos in the classroom here. We have collected the videos you can use for teaching kids, teenagers and adults! — This is Britain - Christmas — We're kids in Britain - Christmas — This is Britain - Christmas Eve / Day — The Story of Santa Claus | Christmas Stories for Kids | Edewcate Children Stories — British Holidays - Christmas — Learn American Holidays - Christmas Day — How do people talk about Christmas in the UK? — Bet You Didn't Know: Christmas | History — Bet You Didn't Know: New Year's Eve | History — Evolution of Santa Claus | History | 
