Christmas and the TEFL Classroom!

It’s that time of year again - Christmas is nearly here! If you’re working in a country that celebrates this festive season, it’s a great time to introduce some fun activities in your classroom! It’s a good opportunity to teach your students about your culture, the history of Christmas and find some fun ways to celebrate! It could also be a chance to learn from your students, find out about their culture and traditions, and how the country you’re working in celebrates!

The origins of Christmas 

Christmas in the UK has origins that go back thousands of years. Many of today’s traditions are shaped by centuries of changing beliefs, politics, technology, taste and commerce. The festive traditions began centuries ago, when early Europeans would celebrate the beginning and end of the darkest days of winter. People rejoiced during the winter solstice, when the darkest of days were behind them and daylight hours began to lengthen. The winter was also the time when people had fresh meat, which wasn’t something they had often, so was a cause for celebration.

In the early days of Christianity, Easter was the main Christian holiday. However, in the fourth century, church officials decided to institute the birth of Jesus as a holiday and the 25th of December was embraced by the population. Christianity replaced Paganism and believers went to church and celebrated. 

Nowadays, Christmas is a widely commercialised holiday. We celebrate Christmas with advent calendars, Christmas trees, listening to Christmas music, lots of hearty food and gift giving.

Fun classroom Christmas activities:

• 12 Days of Christmas: introduce the 12 days of Christmas with a game for each of the days - Christmas word search, drawing pictures, and role plays, to name a few.

• Write a Christmas card - this one can be tailored depending on the level your students are working at. Get students to create their own Christmas cards and write inside either a greeting for lower level students, or a letter for higher level students

• Write a letter to Santa Claus - ask students to write a letter to Santa Claus telling him what they’d like for Christmas. You could use this activity as a tool for teaching tenses or grammar. 

• Christmas Pictionary - write Christmas related words on small pieces of paper. Split your class into two groups. One person from each group picks one piece of paper and has to draw what’s written on it. Their other team members must guess what it is within a chosen time limit (around 30 seconds) - whichever team guesses first wins the point. Continue until each team member has had a turn at drawing. The team with the most points wins!

You can find a lot more great ideas here!