Before entering the world of teaching, I had never really celebrated Halloween, it simply wasn't such a big thing in the UK when I was growing up. But each year I'm continually surprised by how much this 'holiday' continues to grow in Spain and love seeing the enjoyment my YLs get from dressing up, playing Halloween games and 'spook'-ing the adults in their lives. 👻🎃🦇
But why should our teen and adult groups be left out from all the fun?! Here are three activities I've used over the last few years to incorporate Halloween into my intermediate-level exam preparation groups. While students might think they've had a fun, 'easy' lesson on the topic of Halloween, each activity actually practises key language and/or strategies they will need for future exam success.
1 Oh no! It's a zombie apocalypse!
A light-hearted speaking activity for intermediate-level students to carry out in pairs/small groups. Students are given the context to the task - you find yourselves in an unexpected zombie apocalypse and must select four items and one weapon to help you survive. Once they've made their decisions, each small group presents their choices to the class, with justifications, and the class votes for the group most likely to survive. Here's a simple presentation you can use in class.
Challenge stronger groups by encouraging them to use second conditionals in their discussions: If we met a group of zombies, we could use the petrol and matches to eliminate them all!
So, how does this relate to exam practice?
Both the B1 and B2 Cambridge speaking exams require students to discuss options together in their respective collaborative tasks (Speaking Part 3 in both exams).
Students need to become familiar with a range of skills, including:
discussing the pros and cons of different options
agreeing and disagreeing with one another
asking each other questions
making decisions
(Note: I usually provide my students with 'cheat sheets' of potential phrases to use while they're becoming familiar with the exam tasks - see example).
2 Halloween question swap
The topic of Halloween can be a great launching pad for delving into an array of interesting conversation topics for intermediate-level learners to discuss - past habits, fears and phobias, superstitions, cultural traditions... Why not add a 'question swap' activity to your Halloween lesson plan?
How does a question swap work?
Prepare your questions onto slips of paper or post it notes, and give one to each student in the class. Students mingle and find a partner, taking turns to ask and answer each other's questions. Encourage your students to include reasons and/or examples, or enforce a '30 second answer' rule. Once students have given their answers, they swap question slips and go on to find another student to chat with. Students are able to discuss a variety of questions with all their classmates, while avoiding any repetition.
So, how does this relate to exam practice?
Helping students be prepared to discuss questions on a variety of topics is great training for speaking exam situations. Encouraging extended answers with justifications and examples will also help students to develop their answers, achieving higher marks in examinations.
3 Incorporating music
It's quite common to include songs in the English language classroom when celebrating a holiday or other event and I don't think Halloween should be any exception! Try steering clear of the songs your students may already know (Thriller comes to mind - even 8-year-old Spanish kids know 50% of the words to this classic!) and challenge them to listen carefully to a song they may be less familiar with.
I like the song Demons by Imagine Dragons so have used it in classes across several levels now. Make a little more out of a simple gap fill activity by asking your students to first read through the lyrics and note down the type of word they'll need in each gap. They can then listen to the song, completing the lyrics as they go. Provide the answers in a word cloud for students to check their ideas, before repeating the song to check.
So, how does this relate to exam practice?
Both the B1 and B2 Cambridge exams contain both reading and listening comprehension activities in which students need to complete a gapped text. Training your students to consider which part of speech (verb, preposition, noun...) they need in each gap, and even to predict a possible answer, will help them to deal with similar tasks in an exam situation.
Happy Halloween! 🎃💀🪄🧙🏻♀️
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