Planning A Holiday Dinner: Group Activities for the ESL Classroom
Speaking Activities for ESL Students
Use these new, engaging group activities for the ESL classrooms to encourage your students to practice speaking more. Building up confidence to speak a new language in the safety of the classroom can help students successfully navigate second-language conversations in the real world. These materials were designed based on real world tasks to optimize their application in ESL classes. The speaking activities can be used as a central part of a lesson or topic, or as a smaller piece of a larger unit.
Free ESL Speaking Materials
FLOW Speak provides free ESL teaching materials to help teachers incorporate more conversation skills and activities into their lessons. These group activities are ideal for adult and young adult English language learners. Based on daily life, these speaking activities will bring more practical conversations into their English learning journey.
Group Activity: Planning a Holiday Dinner
In our ESL classrooms, we explore culture, celebrations, and traditions throughout the year. At the center of these celebrations is food, of course! Therefore, as a way of bringing beginner English language learners into the conversation about holidays and traditions in other cultures, we’ve designed a lesson around planning a holiday dinner.
Students will learn about the culture of western-style holiday meals including the types of foods as well as the typical delegation of sides and other small dishes by the host to their guests. This activity requires students to work together to plan a meal, prompting conversations around food, customs, and holiday traditions around the world.
How to Implement ‘Planning a Holiday Dinner’ in Class
Students will plan a meal with six distinct components. They can work in groups of 6 and create a meal plan including the main course, a salad dish, two sides, an appetizer and a dessert (if smaller groups are necessary, students can be responsible for two dishes). This activity will require teamwork and discussion as students decide who will bring each item and explain why they chose their specific dish. There is a second optional handout that asks students to complete a dinner invitation which can be shared with the rest of the class. It can be paired with lessons around holidays such as Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, Eid, or even the Fourth of July. It is an ideal activity for learners with a high beginner level of English or A2 according to the CEFR.
The teaching materials include a page of instructions for teachers as well as the handouts for students. The ‘Teacher Instructions’ page includes information on delivery, necessary materials, enabling objectives, and suggested homework. The suggested homework shares related FLOW Speak lessons that can be assigned after the activity for individual speaking practice to reinforce what was learned in class. The related lessons in ‘Planning a Holiday Dinner’ include the ‘Invitation to Dinner’ Conversation Lesson, the ‘Backyard BBQ’’ Bite Lesson, and the ‘New Recipe’ AI Talk Lesson. If you are interested in learning more about using FLOW Speak lessons in your classroom, contact achieve@flowspeak.io.
Download the materials
FLOW Speak Activity - Planning a holiday dinner.pdf
