Planning the office Christmas party

This engaging Business English lesson is about event planning, and planning the office Christmas party in particular. Students will learn tons of important vocabulary and will discuss various aspects of corporate event management such as budget, venue, catering. You can combine this lesson with “Phrasal verbs: Parties and celebrations“, “Idioms: Christmas”, as well as other Christmas-related lessons: “Have a sustainable Christmas” and “Christmas marketing“. Another Business English lesson you might like is “The importance of company culture“.

Speaking: The lesson starts with a general discussion about office holiday parties: students share their opinions about them and say whether their company throws a Christmas party. After that students are given 4 venue ideas and are asked to discuss the pros and cons of each one.

Vocabulary: food and drink. In this part of the lesson students learn important vocabulary about event planning (open bar, spirits, platter, buffet, dietary restrictions). Students complete a vocabulary matching and a gap-fill exercise. After that they discuss a few questions in order to practise the target vocabulary.

Speaking and vocabulary: Office party etiquette and appropriate behaviour. First, students brainstorm the dos and don’ts of office parties behaviour. Then they are given a few ideas and they need to decide whether the behaviour is appropriate or not.

Video: all of the previous activities pre-teach the vocabulary needed to understand the video: “5 tips for office holiday party planning”. It is divided into 3 parts and students complete 3 different tasks.

Speaking: Finally, students organise their own company Christmas party according to 1 of 2 different scenarios provided.

This lesson is a great way to start talking about event planning, team building, networking and corporate culture.