Ideas using festive literature in your English language classes

Sam Colley
A group of teenagers reading together in a library smiling
Reading time: 5 minutes

The holiday season is a magical time to bring festive cheer and rich cultural traditions into your English language classroom. Classic holiday stories and poems not only capture the spirit of the season but also provide excellent opportunities for language learning. In this blog post, we'll suggest some timeless holiday literature and explore how they can be effectively used in the classroom to enhance your students' language skills and allow you to make the most of these festive texts.

Classic holiday stories and poems

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

This novella tells the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserly old man who is visited by the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come. Through these supernatural visits, Scrooge learns the importance of kindness, generosity and the true holiday spirit.

How to use in the classroom:

  • Reading comprehension: Assign chapters to read in class or as homework. Discuss key events and character developments.
  • Vocabulary building: Highlight and define challenging vocabulary words. Create flashcards or vocabulary quizzes.
  • Role-playing: Have students act out scenes to practice speaking and improve their understanding of the dialogue.
  • Creative writing: Ask students to write a diary entry from the perspective of Scrooge at different points in the story.

Discussion questions:

- What are the main reasons for Scrooge's initial behavior?
- How do the visits from the ghosts change Scrooge’s perspective on life?
- What lessons can we learn from "A Christmas Carol" about the true meaning of Christmas?

Ideas using festive literature in your English language classes
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The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry

This short story revolves around a young couple, Jim and Della, who are very much in love but also very poor. They each sacrifice their most prized possession to buy a Christmas gift for the other, only to find that their gifts are now useless. Their acts of love and sacrifice highlight the true meaning of giving.

How to use in the classroom:

  • Reading aloud: Read the story together in class, focusing on pronunciation and intonation.
  • Discussion: Engage students in a discussion about the themes of love and sacrifice. Ask questions like, "What would you be willing to sacrifice for someone you love?"
  • Irony exploration: Discuss the concept of irony and how it is used in the story. Have students identify other examples of irony in literature or real life.
  • Creative projects: Encourage students to create a comic strip or storyboard depicting the key events of the story or ask them to write an alternative ending to the story.

Discussion questions:

- What do Jim and Della’s sacrifices tell us about their relationship?
- How does the story illustrate the concept of irony?
- What is the true gift that Jim and Della give each other?

Twas the Night Before Christmas by Clement Clarke Moore

This classic poem describes the magical visit of St. Nicholas (Santa Claus) on Christmas Eve. Its vivid imagery and rhythmic verses make it a delightful read for students of all ages.

How to use in the classroom:

  • Choral reading: Read the poem aloud as a class, with students taking turns to read different stanzas. Focus on expression and fluency.
  • Vocabulary activities: Identify and define unfamiliar words. Create a festive word wall with these terms.
  • Illustration project: Have students illustrate scenes from the poem and create a class display. This can help with comprehension and visualization.
  • Role-playing: Encourage students to act out the poem, with some playing the roles of St. Nicholas and others as the narrator or reindeer.
Discussion questions:

- How does the poem create a sense of anticipation and excitement?
- What details does the poet use to describe Santa Claus and his reindeer?
- How does the poem reflect the traditions and customs of Christmas?

While not everyone will celebrate the holiday season, there are other stories and poems that reflect the mood of the season that you could look at as part of your English language lessons instead.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost

This poem describes a quiet, contemplative moment in which the speaker stops to watch snow falling in the woods. The serene and reflective mood captures the peacefulness of winter.

How to use in the classroom:

  • Poetry analysis: Analyze the poem's structure, rhyme scheme and imagery. Discuss how these elements contribute to the overall mood.
  • Listening activity: Have students listen to a recording of the poem and follow along with the text. Focus on pronunciation and rhythm.
  • Imagery discussion: Ask students to describe the images that come to mind when they read the poem. Encourage them to draw or paint these scenes.
  • Writing exercise: Have students write their own winter-themed poems, using Frost's poem as inspiration.

Discussion questions:

- What images does Frost use to create a sense of peace and quiet?
- How does the rhyme scheme contribute to the overall mood of the poem?
- What might the speaker be contemplating as he stops to watch the snow?

The Mitten by Jan Brett

It tells the story of a young boy named Nicki who loses one of his white mittens in the snow. As the mitten lies on the ground, various woodland animals, one by one, find the mitten and squeeze inside it to stay warm. The mitten stretches to accommodate each new animal, growing larger and larger. Eventually, a bear sneezes, causing all the animals to tumble out and Nicki finds his mitten again.

How to use in the classroom:

  • Vocabulary building: Teach the names of the animals in the story, introduce vocabulary related to winter clothing and highlight verbs associated with the animals' actions.
  • Story sequencing: Create cards with pictures of the animals in the order they enter the mitten. Have students arrange the cards in the correct sequence, encouraging them to retell the story in their own words, using the sequencing cards as prompts.
  • Listening activities: Read the story aloud and have students listen for specific words or phrases. They can raise their hands or hold up picture cards when they hear the target words.
  • Role-playing: Assign roles to students and have them act out the story. This helps with practicing dialogue and expression.

Discussion questions:

- Which animal surprised you the most when it entered the mitten and why?
- Can you describe a time when you lost something important? How did you feel and what did you do?
- How do you think the mitten changed after all the animals were inside it?

Incorporating festive literature into your English language teaching can make the holiday season more enjoyable and educational for your students. By using classic holiday stories and poems, you can help students improve their language skills while also exploring important themes and traditions. These timeless pieces of literature offer rich opportunities for reading comprehension, vocabulary building, creative expression and cultural exploration. We hope these suggestions inspire you to bring some holiday cheer into your classroom this December.

See our blogs on Creative writing exercises for English language learners and 12 games and puzzles to level up your language learning for some more hints and tips on English language learning.

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    Mindfulness activities for kids to reduce stress

    By Amy Malloy

    How can we help children (and ourselves) deal with turbulent situations?

    As humans, we are programmed to position ourselves according to the constants around us: people, structures and boundaries. When those constants shift, it can be unsettling for adults and children.

    Sometimes we find ourselves in unprecedented situations, and we each have our own approach to managing things. If you feel confused and without direction because of a turbulent situation, please know that that is okay.

    We’ll look today at why that is, to help us understand ourselves a little more and why these simple mindfulness activities can help us navigate it.

    What causes social stress?

    There may be many reasons for feeling stressed in life, but during turbulent times in society, it is often due to not feeling safe.

    Something in our environment is alerting our survival instinct. This makes our brains produce stress hormones, which get us ready to fight the threat, run from it, or freeze until it’s gone away.

    The threat might be to our physical or even social survival – and the two are linked. Things can feel even scarier when we also feel isolated from our social group, which keeps us protected from that threat.

    Human beings are social by nature. We live and work in communities, we connect through love and empathy and we protect each other. There’s truth to the saying“there’s safety in numbers”.

    But it’s not just about safety. We also define ourselves by comparing ourselves to others and working out what we are not.

    Research has found that we identify deeply with our role in society and the ‘pack’ to which we belong. This holds deep ties with our sense of safety, contentment and self-esteem. If the boundaries by which we define and position ourselves have shifted or continue to shift, we will feel unsafe, threatened and therefore stressed.

    Are children affected by social stress in the same way?

    If we then apply this to children, the constants to whom they look for security are the adults in their life. If the adults are behaving differently, the children will feel a shift and feel unsafe and stressed too. If they don’t have their friends alongside them for social positioning, this too can lead to them feeling confused and uncertain.

    Here are some key ways we can help:

    Communicating and listening

    Children may often lack the language to express what they are feeling, or even to recognize it themselves. Therefore, we must offer ways to help them make sense of the world around them, to help them feel safe and to help express their concerns.

    Communication provides the necessary social interaction and models for them on how to handle the new situation. It firms up their boundaries, and provides a safe space where they feel listened to and acknowledged and this, in turn, helps diffuse their stress.

    The activity below is a lovely way to invite children to express any worry they might be feeling, mindfully and with support – and give them something to do with their feelings. It also has the benefit of helping them breathe fully and slowly, which will calm down their nervous system.

    Breath activity: Worry bubbles

    1. Sit together and invite your child to put their palms together.
    2. Invite them to take a big breath in. As they breathe in, they can draw their palms further and further apart, spreading their fingers as they imagine blowing up a big bubble between their hands.
    3. Invite them to whisper a worry into the bubble.
    4. Invite them to blow the breath out nice and slowly. As they breathe out, they can imagine blowing the bubble (and the worry) away with a big sigh.
    5. Twinkle the fingers back down to the lap, and start again, either with the same worry or a new one

    Helping them find a safety anchor inside themselves

    By helping children focus on breathing, we can teach them that even if things feel wobbly around them, their breath is always there. The act of focusing on the breath also helps settle the fight or flight branch of their nervous system into a calmer, more balanced state.

    Breath Activity: Counting breaths

    1. Invite your child to sit with you.
    2. Invite them to place their hands on their tummy and breathe in slowly so they push into their hands, counting slowly up to four.
    3. As they breathe out, invite them to count up to six, as they slowly empty the belly and their hands lower back down.
    4. Continue until they feel calmer. You can do this every morning or evening to help sustain balance. With younger children, they might like a teddy on their tummy to push up and down!

    These two activities can be lovely daily practices to try and provide some safety and structure to your child or students’ mental health right now. They are also enjoyable activities to try for yourself – you may like to increase the in and out count of the breath a little bit for an adult breath.