Elementary ESL Lessons: Easter Holidays

Holidays: Easter Word Hunt 

Preparation Materials: Vocabulary cards, colored paper, word search sheets.
Suggested Level: Elementary grades 3 to 6

Introduction 

Easter is a holiday celebrated in countries around the world. It is originally a Christian religious holiday, but there are also many other ways to celebrate. On Easter morning, parents like to hide little chocolate eggs and candies around the house for their children to find. Children collect the chocolate and candies in an Easter basket. This is called an Easter Egg Hunt!

Easter Vocabulary

Here is some fun Easter vocabulary:

• Easter
• spring
• bunny
• Easter egg
• hunt
• basket
• chocolate
• color
• decorate

Preparation Activity: Writing Practice

To play Word Hunt with your students, you will need letter cards. Each word should be written in a different color or on different colors of paper. Give each group one color and a list of scrambled letters to write. Cut out each letter of the word. To make the game harder, include extra letters too!

Main Activity: Word Hunt

Use the Easter vocabulary words to make a Word Hunt for your students.

1. Hide the letters of the vocabulary words around the classroom.
2. Let the students search for the letters.
3. The students assemble the letters to make their vocabulary word.
4. They show the teacher the word and get a sticker.
5. Review the words as a class.

Review: Word Search

You can find word searches on the Internet. These are rows of letters with vocabulary words hidden in them. To review Easter, you can give your students a word search with the words you studied. Some websites give you the option of building your own, but may charge money. You can make word searches by hand using a grid or on your computer using Excel, Google Sheets, etc.

C	G	G	F	O
H	R	K	M	G
O	U	B	P	G
C	A	N	R	M
O	N	G	T	N
L	E	G	G	Y
A	F	R	N	D
T	E	N	E	A
E	U	W	Z	X
B	E	P	U	C

Final Tips

• You can write sentence instead of words. For example, “I like red Easter eggs.” This helps the students practice the order of the words.
• For fun, you can make the letter cards egg-shaped!

Lessons For Teaching In Japan: Countries - A Trip Around The World

Countries: A Trip Around The World

Preparation Materials: Bingo sheets, stamps, vocabulary cards.

Level: Upper elementary to first year junior high. 

Introduction 

One of the reasons to study English is because it is an international language. Many travelers from all over use English to communicate in different countries. We will look at a lesson that teaches countries as well as some useful travel phrases. Spinning the Globe There are many countries to choose from. An ideal mix combines countries that students know (United States, Russia) with countries they don’t know (South Africa, Iceland). For example:

• Canada 
• China 
• Brazil 
• South Korea 
• Italy 
• India 
• Egypt 
• Taiwan 
• England 
• Australia 
• Russia 

Preparation Activity: Interview Bingo

• The teacher prepares bingo sheets with country flags. 
• Each students is given a secret country card. 
• Students can circle their own flag on the sheet. 
• Students meet, do paper, rock, scissors, and the winner asks, “Where are you from?” 
• The loser answers, “I’m from [his or her card].” 
• The winner circles that flag. 
• Repeat. 
• When students get bingo, they go to the teacher for a prize. 

Main Activity: Let's Travel

• Students get a passport from teacher. 
• Inside, they write their name and country (the same secret card), and draw a picture of their face. For higher-level students, you can add more information. 
• The teacher sits at desks with different stamps representing each country. You can use some students as countries too as long as there is time to rotate them. 
• The students approach the desks and the teacher asks, “Where are you from?” 
• The student answers, “I’m from ~.” 
• The teacher asks, “Where are you going?” 
• The student answers, “I’m going to [any country]” 
• The teacher stamps their passport with that country’s stamp. 
• Repeat. 

Note: If you can find country stamps, that’s great. If not, stamp each flashcard so you and the students can remember what stamp belongs to what country.

Level Up: Customs Interview Instead of sticking to the pattern, challenge the students by adding new questions. For example: “How old are you?” “What’s your name?” “When is your birthday?” Or: “Where are you going?” “I’m going to Brazil” “Why?” “I like soccer.” This encourages students to think outside of the pattern.

Review: My Travel Diary 

After the lesson is over, students should have a passport full of different stamps. To review, pick a student and ask them to list the places they went in English. You can even use past tense: “Where did you go?” “I went to Canada, Brazil, China…”

Final Tips

• You can turn the vocabulary into a quiz by giving the students hints rather than showing them the cards. For example: “This country is hot. It has many crocodiles and kangaroos.” 
• Controlling the flow of students is important during shopping and passport games. Try to make sure that no country/shop is being ignored.

Thailand: A Reason to Buy Speedos

During my years in Japan, I've made surprisingly few trips to the rest of Asia. It turns out that, although I love being somewhere else, I like being in the same place almost as much. That said, I am glad I did make the time for a trip to Thailand. It started out looking to be one of the worst vacations, but slowly, by dint of days and sun, became one of the best.

It is my own fault, not Thailand’s, that the trip started out badly. I went the cheap route, with an Air Egypt flight that didn’t have enough blankets for the passengers and sported the only working TV on the other side of the plane.

After landing, I headed straight for my only planned destination, one of the largest markets in Bangkok where a giant conglomeration of tented stalls contains almost every product under the sun for next to nothing. You can buy art, clothes, fighting roosters, marble carvings, any imaginable food, counterfeit Nikes that look like the real thing, real Nikes that look counterfeit, guns, knives, brass knuckles, pornographic ashtrays, DVDs of movies that haven’t hit theaters yet, and, likely hidden somewhere in the back, happiness (or at least something to simulate it).

As I wandered around in the humid Bangkok afternoon, wearing my newly bought sandals and breezy, authentic Thai fisherman pants that I only saw on other tourists, I noticed several things.

1. The populations of people and stray dogs are near equal in some parts of the city. 
2. Children under five may not actually have clothes or just opt out of wearing them. 
3. Sidewalk and road hold little distinction for vehicles or pedestrians. 
4. There are no traffic rules, merely suggestions that carry the same weight as the surgeon general’s warning to chronic smokers. 
5. It smells like flowers, rotten eggs, perfume, sweat, exhaust, mud, and grass all at the same time. 
6. It’s infested with tourists – especially of the 40 year-old man with the (hopefully) 18 year-old Thai girl variety (or boy). 
7. The food is delicious. 

Two “pleasures” I decided to try out in Thailand were traditional Thai massage and a straight blade shave at a barbershop. I started out slow, getting a foot massage at the market first and a haircut (they did shave my ears, which has left me with a complex over whether my ears are hairy or not).

I challenged the real shave first, selecting a shop run by three gorgeous women as I figured, if it had to happen, I’d rather have my jugular severed by a beautiful woman. However, when I sat down in the chair, had my temples massaged, and was lathered up, they brought Shaky out from some backroom he must hide in so that he doesn’t scare customers away.

Shaky was a ancient looking Thai man that was about as steady as a punch-drunk boxer. I pulled a deer in the headlights and went absolutely rigid watching Shaky try to steady his hands enough to wipe the four-inch razor against his apron. I honestly don’t know how I avoided wetting myself in pure terror every time he came near my neck with that blade. To add to the apprehension over what turned out to be a 20 minute shave, Shaky started by shaving my forehead – I don’t know about my ears, but I’m pretty damn certain my forehead didn’t need the shave. I seriously felt like I had survived a near death experience when I walked out with only one nick on my cheek and a profound dislike of razor-wielding old men.

The Thai massage was both better and worse as far as experiences go. I asked the hotel staff if there was a place I could get a massage that was strictly just a massage. They pointed me at a place in the same building (of course). It was very clean and had little Zen fountains and other faux-oriental decor that put me at ease, so I went for it. I had assumed that a massage could be done with a minimal removal of clothing, but I was given a small towel and told to leave everything in the change-room locker. Ah well, I figured, at least I get a towel.

So I was lead to the massage tables where two German men wearing Speedos (as, in my experience, all German men do) were getting massages. For the first time in my life, I wished I owned Speedos. My masseuse was in her fifties and she assured me that this was an above-the-belt operation, after which she whipped off my little towel to replace it with an even smaller towel – which wasn’t reassuring at all. So the two Speedo-clad Germans and I tried to relax as the Thai women set about ripping the tendons from our bodies. After the first excruciatingly painful half hour it began to feel fantastic.

After all was said and done, I actually felt really good. I went back to my hotel and had one of the most satisfying sleeps in my life. So my advice, if you find yourself in Thailand and wanting a massage, is to invest in Speedos. Oh yeah, and stay away from shaky old men with razors.