Employee holiday gifts
Lesson plan overview
This intermediate ESL lesson deals with the topic of employee holiday gifts, as well as employee appreciation ideas in general. It is suitable to teach before the Christmas holidays, but parts of it are also applicable year round. If you are interested in other business Christmas lessons, you can check out “Planning the office Christmas party”, and “Christmas marketing”.
Speaking: The lesson starts with a general discussion about giving and receiving gifts in the workplace. Next, students write down 10 items they would like to see in their Christmas gift basket this year.
Listening: Students watch a video called “Best employee holiday gifts for every budget“, and complete 2 listening comprehension activities.After that, they engage in a post-listening discussion.
Vocabulary: Students take a look at a few extracts from the video and match 6 words and expressions to their definitions (e.g. company culture, employee morale, break your budget). To practise, they complete 6 sentences with the correct expression.
Speaking: Moving on, students discuss what their company’s policy is regarding receiving gifts. Then the topic turns to employee appreciation ideas. First, students brainstorm different employee appreciation ideas, divided into 5 categories (e.g. monetary rewards, professional development opportunities, etc.). Then they put the ideas given into the correct category. Finally, they discuss the ideas and answer questions related to them.
Vocabulary review: To review the vocabulary from this lesson, students are asked to combine words from 2 different groups in order to create expressions seen in the lesson (e.g. job satisfaction, mentorship program, year-end bonus). They create 12 expressions in total. Finally, they create 5 sentences related to their experiences or their companies, using 5 of the expressions.
For further speaking practice, you can use the printable set of conversation cards.
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Teacher’s lesson plan
Student’s worksheet
Student’s interactive PDF
Conversation cards PDF
Pre-class activities
All video-based ESL lesson plans include online pre-class activities, which are FREE and can be completed without registration. Perfect for teachers who wish to embrace the blended learning approach. By providing students with resources and engagement opportunities before the actual class session, educators can foster active participation, enhance comprehension, and optimise in-class discussions.
The pre-class activities are optional: if you choose not to assign them, or your students don’t complete them, it will not disturb the flow of the class. You can find and review the pre-class activities for this lesson plan here:
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In-class activities
Additional resources
Each video-based lesson plan includes links to additional resources (videos and articles), which are FREE can be found online (in the pre-class activities page. These links aim to extend the learning experience, enabling students to connect classroom knowledge with real-world applications.
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Teacher’s lesson plan
Student’s worksheet
Student’s interactive PDF
Conversation cards PDF
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