New Year around the world: ideas for your lessons

As the New Year approaches, it’s the perfect time to incorporate this festive theme into your ESL lessons. 

Exploring how different cultures celebrate the New Year not only enriches your students’ cultural understanding but also provides engaging opportunities to practice language skills. 

I gathered my five favorite creative lesson ideas. 

I am a big fan of thematic games and activities that suit both adults and young learners. 

They will definitely make your New Year lessons memorable.

The main objective of the lesson is to improve listening and speaking skills while learning about cultural diversity. 

Let’s set up this lesson accordingly:

Also you may try eliciting these customs from your Students, maybe they know something you don’t.

Encourage them to share personal stories or create a fictional New Year tradition for their family.
Extension: Turn the discussion into a group presentation where each group "teaches" the class about a particular country's tradition. 

Our goal here would be to expand vocabulary related to New Year celebrations. 

There are several online tools you may use to present a new vocabulary to class. 

• Of course, the first step is to prepare a list of New Year-related words (e.g., resolution, countdown, fireworks, midnight, champagne).
• Divide the class into two teams.
• Write the first letter of a word on the board and give a definition or clue. Teams race to guess the word and spell it correctly on the board.
  Bonus round: Teams can use the words in sentences to earn extra points.

You can create your own game through those resources or find a ready template. 

It might not take the whole lesson so you may use this activity during the lesson as a flexible one.

Here comes something to practice writing skills and expressing future goals. 

Wow, writing and grammar all in one pack, what can be better for a teacher who likes to incorporate fun into useful stuff.

Begin with teaching the structure of resolutions (e.g., "This year, I will...", "I want to..."). 

Then you would want to provide sentence starters and let students write their resolutions on colorful paper cutouts shaped like stars, balloons, or fireworks. 

I love to create my own templates in Canva and distribute them to each student.

Decorate a section of the classroom as the "Resolution Wall" and have students read their resolutions aloud. 

How can you do that online? Padlet is the way out!

It is a good idea to have an open class discussion or a group work once all the resolutions are in place.

Another extra activity that you may find useful for a flexi stage. 

It won’t take long but definitely raises the spirit and becomes a nice addition to the lesson.

Prepare multiple-choice questions or a Kahoot! quiz describing different New Year celebrations worldwide. 

To make sure you are creating a legitimate quiz, feel free to use ChatGPT. 

Students guess the correct country or tradition.

Extension: Encourage students to bring their own quiz questions for the class, which they research in advance.

In order to build confidence in speaking and improve fluency students need a lot of practice in a safe environment. 

Let’s try to create one.

Divide the class into small groups and assign each group a country with unique New Year customs. 

You may prepare handouts with the relevant information and distribute it to the groups.

Students perform their skits for the class, practicing pronunciation, intonation, and creativity.

Tip: Incorporate props like hats, noisemakers, or cultural items to enhance the fun if you are offline. 

There is an option to use these with amazing filters on online platforms you are using (Zoom, Google Meets, etc.)

Create bingo cards with New Year-related words and have students mark them as you describe the words. 

I love to create my own ones by using Canva. 

Students write letters to their future selves describing their goals, which you can return to them at the end of the school year. 

If we are working with adults don’t be afraid of doing this activity with them as well.

Students bring a picture or description of a New Year dish from their culture and explain its significance. 

Let’s hear about that Olivier we all love so much.

These activities will make your New Year lessons interactive, meaningful, and culturally enriching. 

Your students will leave the class not only with improved English skills but also with a deeper appreciation for the global diversity of New Year celebrations. 

I hope I shared something useful with you and now you are inspired to make your lessons more interactive and fun. 

Good luck. Here's to a joyful and successful year of teaching ahead!