Saturday, October 25, 2008ESL Teacher Blog: Halloween Teaching Ideas
- While we all like to read a story or two about the origin and traditions of Halloween, the following can be used to warm up a Halloween related lesson or provide supplementary activities for the holiday.
Vocabulary-related:
- This is a great opportunity to review clothing articles and accessories with the class. Based on the level, the vocabulary can range from basic items (dress, robe, pants and boots) to intermediate (gown, cloak, shawl, tiara) to advanced when students are asked to add adjectives or descriptions to the costumes (glow in the dark mask, detachable wings, belt with a metal buckle, puffed sleeves, clip-on tail, etc.)
You can do it the other way around by providing students with examples of clothing articles on index cards and having them to guess a costume/character.
This idea is easy to implement by looking at cut-out pictures from newspapers or magazines or real costumes that instructor/students bring to class on that day.
- Teach idioms related to describing fear. Have students share their scary experiences using these idioms. Use this worksheet for detailed explanations.
Grammar-related:
Talk about present and past participle adjectives related to the holiday. Compare frightening and frightened, shocking and shocked, horrifying and horrified. Have students write sentences showing the difference between –ing and –ed adjectives.
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- Cultural Element:
Ask students to create a list of Halloween appropriate costumes (can even be narrowed down to age or gender suitable). Take it up as a class and add additional characters. -
- Talk about the origin of the costumes inspired by popular movies, books or folklore. A possible list can include a cheerleader, candy corn witch, master of doom, skeleton, Indiana Jones, Harry Potter, Hannah Montana, Iron Man, werewolf, Jack Sparrow, etc.
POSTED BY Olga Galperin AT 3:49 PM
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