Winter festivals
Lesson plan overview
This B2 lesson for adults and teens is dedicated to the topic of winter festivals around the world. Students will learn interesting verbs and adjectives to describe places. Other video-based lessons you might find interesting are “Winter sports”, “Solar eclipses and other natural ohenomena“, and “Travel destinations”, as well as the worksheets: “Idioms: winter and winter-inspired”, “Phrasal verbs: Carnival“, “Phrasal verbs: travel”, and “Idioms: travel”.
The lesson starts with a couple of speaking activities. First, students discuss general questions about winter festivals. Then, they compare winter and summer festivals, using the talking points given.
Vocabulary: Students learn more-advanced verbs used when describing a travel destination (these verbs will later be heard in the video as well), such as soak in, dive into, delve into, marvel at, hop on, stroll, wander by finding a suitable synonym of the verbs in 10 sentences. To practice they think about their own city and complete 8 sentences given with specific locations and places.
Listening: Students watch part of a video (as the whole video is too long) and discover 7 different winter festivals (Quebec Winter Carnival, Venice Carnival, Amsterdam Light Festival, Cologne Winter Carnival, Sapporo Snow Festival, Ljubljana Dragon Carnival, Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival). They watch the video and complete 2 listening comprehension activities. After that they engage in a post-listening discussion.
Vocabulary: Next, students learn a few adjectives from the video (e.g. jaw-dropping, awe-inspiring, quirky, dazzling, mesmerizing) but looking at expressions from the video and matching the adjectives to their definitions. Then they are asked to discuss different questions, using the adjectives given.
Speaking: Finally, students work in pairs or small groups and design their own festival, creating a presentation and trying to make it look as attractive as possible.
For more speaking practice, and to review the target vocabulary from this lesson, you can use the 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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