myTESOL Lounge

Hi All,

Does anyone have any fun or creative ideas/lessons plans related to Halloween or a different October holiday? If so, please brag up on yourself here or consider sharing :).

Christine  

------------------------------
Christine Nicodemus

Department Chair- Humanities, Social Sciences, & Fine Arts, Wayne Community College (USA)
------------------------------

Hello Christine!
 I have just come across your message and remembered I have a very old blog post (written in 2011) about one of my Halloween lessons.

I teach English as a foreign language in a secondary school in Croatia and I do hope you will find this activity interesting.
I got some ideas from Pearson Longman, but adapted it to more for my students.

Here is the link: http://englishlearning-marijanasblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/spooky-halloween-lesson.html

Hope you like it.
Kind regards
Marijana

------------------------------
Marijana Smolcec
Croatia
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 27-09-2021 03:47 PM
From: Christine Nicodemus
Subject: Holiday Lesson Plans?

Hi All,

Does anyone have any fun or creative ideas/lessons plans related to Halloween or a different October holiday? If so, please brag up on yourself here or consider sharing :).

Christine  

------------------------------
Christine Nicodemus

Department Chair- Humanities, Social Sciences, & Fine Arts, Wayne Community College (USA)
------------------------------

I love that a lesson created nearly a decade ago can still be relevant today. Thank you for sharing. (I know I would have loved the Halloween parodies as a second-language learning high schooler!)

Unrelatedly, I wonder--do you have pumpkins growing in your garden this year? :-)

------------------------------
Christine Nicodemus

Department Chair- Humanities, Social Sciences, & Fine Arts, Wayne Community College (USA)
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 27-09-2021 05:21 PM
From: Marijana Smolcec
Subject: Holiday Lesson Plans?

Hello Christine!
 I have just come across your message and remembered I have a very old blog post (written in 2011) about one of my Halloween lessons.

I teach English as a foreign language in a secondary school in Croatia and I do hope you will find this activity interesting.
I got some ideas from Pearson Longman, but adapted it to more for my students.

Here is the link: http://englishlearning-marijanasblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/spooky-halloween-lesson.html

Hope you like it.
Kind regards
Marijana

------------------------------
Marijana Smolcec
Croatia

Original Message:
Sent: 27-09-2021 03:47 PM
From: Christine Nicodemus
Subject: Holiday Lesson Plans?

Hi All,

Does anyone have any fun or creative ideas/lessons plans related to Halloween or a different October holiday? If so, please brag up on yourself here or consider sharing :).

Christine  

------------------------------
Christine Nicodemus

Department Chair- Humanities, Social Sciences, & Fine Arts, Wayne Community College (USA)
------------------------------

Hi Christine!

Yes, well we used to have. At least we did when our kids were younger. Nowadays, I don't plant that much pumpkins.

We have a huge garden and we do plant other vegetables. :)
Marijana

------------------------------
Marijana Smolcec
Croatia
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 28-09-2021 04:40 PM
From: Christine Nicodemus
Subject: Holiday Lesson Plans?

I love that a lesson created nearly a decade ago can still be relevant today. Thank you for sharing. (I know I would have loved the Halloween parodies as a second-language learning high schooler!)

Unrelatedly, I wonder--do you have pumpkins growing in your garden this year? :-)

------------------------------
Christine Nicodemus

Department Chair- Humanities, Social Sciences, & Fine Arts, Wayne Community College (USA)

Original Message:
Sent: 27-09-2021 05:21 PM
From: Marijana Smolcec
Subject: Holiday Lesson Plans?

Hello Christine!
 I have just come across your message and remembered I have a very old blog post (written in 2011) about one of my Halloween lessons.

I teach English as a foreign language in a secondary school in Croatia and I do hope you will find this activity interesting.
I got some ideas from Pearson Longman, but adapted it to more for my students.

Here is the link: http://englishlearning-marijanasblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/spooky-halloween-lesson.html

Hope you like it.
Kind regards
Marijana

------------------------------
Marijana Smolcec
Croatia

Original Message:
Sent: 27-09-2021 03:47 PM
From: Christine Nicodemus
Subject: Holiday Lesson Plans?

Hi All,

Does anyone have any fun or creative ideas/lessons plans related to Halloween or a different October holiday? If so, please brag up on yourself here or consider sharing :).

Christine  

------------------------------
Christine Nicodemus

Department Chair- Humanities, Social Sciences, & Fine Arts, Wayne Community College (USA)
------------------------------

Hi Christine,

I have some things up on my Teachers Pay Teachers page, including this free logic puzzle: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Distance-Learning-Critical-Thinking-Mystery-Activity-The-Candy-Thief-PPT-3390118

Besides that, I like to do a scary story genre analysis and then have them write their own. I bring in 2-5 scary short stories, tailored to the class on scariness and vocab and complexity. I find creepy urban legends like these https://www.rd.com/list/scary-halloween-true-events/ work well and are appealing without being too scary! Then we go over the structure of the stories.

1. introduction of the situation, which often involves some elements of isolation or scariness (night, alone, lost, full moon)
2. odd event (often unexplained, sometimes not very scary but a bit strange)
3. escalation (something very scary or weird happens) OR apparent resolution (it was just a cat!)
4. time passes (sleep, pass out, run away and get home)
5. revelation/twist (the explanation for the events is revealed and it's usually even creepier than we thought)
We also discuss a twist and how it works, and students love to give examples from movies or books they've read!

You can do a mini-lecture or give them guided questions and they can read stories in groups and answer the questions.

Then we do vocab-building. What are scary places, animals, sounds, people, smells, sights? This is another place students love to share TV, movies and books they know.

Then students can write their own scary story using the outline and vocab on the board. Have everyone read theirs and vote on the weirdest, funniest, scariest, and so on. Note that you can also do these for subgenres: monster stories, funny scary stories, friendly monster stories, and so on.

Another idea for a twist, is to have students start a scary story, write to a cliffhanger, then give the paper to someone else to finish but the rule is they have to add a twist. A lot of fun ideas come out of that!

Hope that helps! I love Halloween and I love teaching it!

Walton

------------------------------
Walton Burns
Freelance Writer
Senior Editor, Alphabet Publishing
www.waltonburns.com
www.alphabetpublishingbooks.com
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 27-09-2021 03:47 PM
From: Christine Nicodemus
Subject: Holiday Lesson Plans?

Hi All,

Does anyone have any fun or creative ideas/lessons plans related to Halloween or a different October holiday? If so, please brag up on yourself here or consider sharing :).

Christine  

------------------------------
Christine Nicodemus

Department Chair- Humanities, Social Sciences, & Fine Arts, Wayne Community College (USA)
------------------------------

These are fabulous ideas, Walton! I especially like how short the stories on the website you shared (https://www.rd.com/list/scary-halloween-true-events/) are. It allows a lot of time for analysis with students. :)

Thanks for your suggestions and for sharing your own work.


------------------------------
Christine Nicodemus

Department Chair- Humanities, Social Sciences, & Fine Arts, Wayne Community College (USA)
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 28-09-2021 09:15 AM
From: Walton Burns
Subject: Holiday Lesson Plans?

Hi Christine,

I have some things up on my Teachers Pay Teachers page, including this free logic puzzle: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Distance-Learning-Critical-Thinking-Mystery-Activity-The-Candy-Thief-PPT-3390118

Besides that, I like to do a scary story genre analysis and then have them write their own. I bring in 2-5 scary short stories, tailored to the class on scariness and vocab and complexity. I find creepy urban legends like these https://www.rd.com/list/scary-halloween-true-events/ work well and are appealing without being too scary! Then we go over the structure of the stories.

1. introduction of the situation, which often involves some elements of isolation or scariness (night, alone, lost, full moon)
2. odd event (often unexplained, sometimes not very scary but a bit strange)
3. escalation (something very scary or weird happens) OR apparent resolution (it was just a cat!)
4. time passes (sleep, pass out, run away and get home)
5. revelation/twist (the explanation for the events is revealed and it's usually even creepier than we thought)
We also discuss a twist and how it works, and students love to give examples from movies or books they've read!

You can do a mini-lecture or give them guided questions and they can read stories in groups and answer the questions.

Then we do vocab-building. What are scary places, animals, sounds, people, smells, sights? This is another place students love to share TV, movies and books they know.

Then students can write their own scary story using the outline and vocab on the board. Have everyone read theirs and vote on the weirdest, funniest, scariest, and so on. Note that you can also do these for subgenres: monster stories, funny scary stories, friendly monster stories, and so on.

Another idea for a twist, is to have students start a scary story, write to a cliffhanger, then give the paper to someone else to finish but the rule is they have to add a twist. A lot of fun ideas come out of that!

Hope that helps! I love Halloween and I love teaching it!

Walton

------------------------------
Walton Burns
Freelance Writer
Senior Editor, Alphabet Publishing
www.waltonburns.com
www.alphabetpublishingbooks.com

Original Message:
Sent: 27-09-2021 03:47 PM
From: Christine Nicodemus
Subject: Holiday Lesson Plans?

Hi All,

Does anyone have any fun or creative ideas/lessons plans related to Halloween or a different October holiday? If so, please brag up on yourself here or consider sharing :).

Christine  

------------------------------
Christine Nicodemus

Department Chair- Humanities, Social Sciences, & Fine Arts, Wayne Community College (USA)
------------------------------