EFL Classroom Activities For Valentine’s Day
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February. The month of love, romance and expensive gifts. The month which has a day which seems to have been invented by the chocolate, jewellery and gift card companies to milk out of us what little money we have after the festive season.
But let’s stop being cynical and think how we can make Valentine’s Day work for us.
The topic of love and relationships is something all of our students can relate to and something we can adapt to all levels of our students. Here are a few of our favourite activities to celebrate Valentine’s Day in the EFL classroom.
Note: these activities are not suitable for Young Learners or even teens. Use your discretion as to whether or not they are suitable for your students and their cultural situation.
Speed dating
Before class, come up with a set of discussion questions related to relationships and dating.
For example: Should you move in with your partner before marriage? What’s the best age to get married? What is your ideal wedding like?
Divide the class into pairs. Each pair must sit at a table with a question. For a certain amount of time (you decide how long) they must discuss the question with their partner. When the time is up they must change to a different pair and a different question – in other words, everyone stands up and moves somewhere new. They now discuss the new question with their new partner. This continues until all the questions have been discussed and all the students have spoken to everyone in the class.
Online dating
Online dating can be used to practise gerunds and infinitives, personality adjectives or adjectives of description. Divide the students into groups. Give them magazines and let them find a picture of a person. When they have chosen a person they must write a description of this person to be used for online dating.
For example: I am 29 years old. I’m quite tall and very athletic. I enjoy walking on the beach and reading books.
Once they have finished their biographies, put them up on the whiteboard or on the classroom walls. The students now walk around looking at all the biographies and they must decide which couples go together. Get feedback as a class in order to discuss the different possibilities.
What happens next?
Before class write out the different stages of a relationship on big pieces of paper.
For example: get married; move in together; have children; meet the parents
In groups, let the students discuss what they think the order of the stages should be. Without much interruption or guidance from you, then let the class as a whole discuss it. The whole point of this exercise is that there is no right answer, but the different options should prompt good discussion. Finish the activity with a delayed error correction activity.
Even if you are not a fan of Valentine’s Day, you can still use the day to your advantage and use it for inspiration in your EFL classroom.
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