Winter is here and so are some cool lesson ideas for teaching ESL! And with 'here' I mean the Northern Hemisphere: winter starts today! I'm already planning my lessons for after Christmas break. Here's what I'm planning on doing:
Winter Discussions
I love getting my students to practice speaking! I will ask them things like: What do you like best about winter? What winter activity do you like most? etc. For this purpose I have created a set of 12 Discussion Cards that I will pass out to each small group. They must discuss every question at length and give answers with good reasons!
These cards may also be used for writing practice!
Winter Writing
I love writing even more than speaking, and I love when I get to see the awesome things my students write! I don't care if they are non-fiction, fiction or argumentative pieces: seeing what my students are capable off always amazes me! For this purpose I have developed 4 different sets of Writing Prompts, with 6 or 12 prompts each: a non-fiction set, with the same questions as the discussion cards above; a narrative set of 6 sentence prompts for writing a story; a picture prompt set of 6 pictures to write about; and a Roll the Dice sheet for which students must roll the dice 4 times for 4 categories of prompts to write a story on.
Winter Vocabulary Games
I enjoy teaching my students new vocabulary, and to practice those words with games is even more fun! First get them to find out what the translations are for words they know in their L1, or teach them through reading a text or listening to audio about it. Showing them pictures is always a great help! Then I will play Dominoes, Memory and a Spot It game with them! These are printable games. If you are virtual or hybrid, I have a Digital Dominoes or Digital Memory game as well!
Winter Task Cards (BOOM Cards)
My newest love is task cards! I love the printable ones I used at Thanksgiving, and now I've made a set of digital ones! Task cards get students to choose the correct answer, and digital ones are self-checking, which makes it even easier for teachers and students alike. They can correct their own errors on the spot. Check out my Winter Task Cards!
Winter Choice Board
The last thing I have planned actually involves the major language skills, except for speaking, but listening, reading, writing and vocabulary are in there: my Choice Board! In it, I give my students 9 options to choose from, and I will tell them to choose at least 4 to finish before the end of the lesson. Options include reading a text and answering questions, watching videos and answer questions, and doing a Kahoot! quiz! It's a great way to keep them busy by themselves for a while, so it's a great pre-holiday activity!
I hope you got some inspiration for your winter lessons from this post. Let me know if I can help in any way!
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