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However, it's also often a time of year when attendance can falter and a class of eight suddenly becomes three. Classes can be cancelled completely, at the last minute - which is why I'm writing this at 7 o'clock on a Monday evening when I'd normally have a class. After Christmas, there can be piles of leftover worksheets, chopped up paper that was never used and 'photocopiable resources' downloaded from the internet and saved onto computer desktops. They may be dutifully added to a folder, a box, a drawer or an electronic file, but will often be left gathering dust until the staffroom gets cleared out, because most of the stuff won't be used the following year as the teachers will have found something new and exciting to do: Gavin and Stacey instead of Mr. Bean.
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It's that time of year again!
It's that time of year again. In most countries there is some sort of celebration, whether it's Christmas or New Year (or the feast of the Epiphany in Spain) and we teachers tend to do something to mark the occasion; a 'special' class for Christmas. The staffroom is often buzzing with ideas, with crafty plans, songs, videos or festive stories. At least this is true in my experience. Often, it means teachers making more effort than normal, despite their end of term tiredness and a million and one other things to be done before the holidays begin.
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| Traditional turkey by Sandy Millin on ELT pics |
As a result, there is often a special 'Christmas' folder, or a drawer of festive plans in plastic wallets (or 'slippery fish' as they have recently been labelled by one of my colleagues!). Maybe there's a selection of video clips available as well. Most of all however, it is a time of worksheets: song lyrics, activities for before and after watching a video, vocabulary that will (generally) not be recycled in January lessons, crosswords, word searches, Christmas quizzes and photocopiable board games.
However, it's also often a time of year when attendance can falter and a class of eight suddenly becomes three. Classes can be cancelled completely, at the last minute - which is why I'm writing this at 7 o'clock on a Monday evening when I'd normally have a class. After Christmas, there can be piles of leftover worksheets, chopped up paper that was never used and 'photocopiable resources' downloaded from the internet and saved onto computer desktops. They may be dutifully added to a folder, a box, a drawer or an electronic file, but will often be left gathering dust until the staffroom gets cleared out, because most of the stuff won't be used the following year as the teachers will have found something new and exciting to do: Gavin and Stacey instead of Mr. Bean.
My own feeling about festive classes is that it is almost a crime to not just talk about what everybody does over the holiday season*. It is one particular time of the year when many people do something special and it is not only governed by national or religious tradition. Most families seem to have their own particular way of doing things. People eat special meals at different times, have different things on the menu and may have peculiar family traditions passed on from previous generations. In general, there is a genuine information gap to be exploited and not just between the class and the foreign teacher (if that is the scenario), but between each individual, regardless of how well they know each other and how similar their background is.
For instance?
We don't do anything special on the 24th December, even though many people in Britain go out to midnight mass, or go out drinking, or both! We get up and go to mass on the morning of the 25th December (my one time of the year, just to keep the peace). At this mass I usually see old school friends who I otherwise never see, so we have a natter and catch up, then I return home with the family. We put the kettle on and start opening presents with a cup of tea or coffee and some biscuits. My mum, still, regardless of the age of my brothers and I, prepares a Christmas stocking for each of us and my dad, who also fills a stocking for my mum. There are always small bottles of booze, chocolate money and a Terry's chocolate orange, every year! There will also be a stocking each for my niece and nephew and each of our visiting partners. After opening the presents, we play with the children and their toys, open some chocolate, because we'll be peckish, and soon enough we'll get into the sherry or gin and tonic.
This is a quick introduction to my Christmas morning. What we do has changed over the years, but some things remain the same, year on year. Even if you have a similar background to me, I'll bet your Christmas is different. You may not celebrate Christmas but do something for New Year, or perhaps you don't celebrate anything at all.
Conversing about these differences highlights the richness of individual lives and family quirks. It also means raising awareness of how it is not possible to explain succinctly what people in X country do, because people in X country all do something different, regardless of similarities. We don't all eat turkey in Britain, we don't all open Christmas crackers, we don't all celebrate New Year, we don't all celebrate Christmas, not everybody ignores the spiritual message and not everyone goes out and gets drunk on Christmas Eve, though many people do all of these things.
I was told by a colleague recently of how some of her former workmates, in England, were so keen on forcing the Christian seasonal message out of the classroom that they made a point of teaching their multi-lingual foreigners that Christmas was a pagan festival in England, highlighting facts about the date and the tree, while arguing that not many people in the UK are religious any more. This sends out an incorrect message and is just as wrong as pushing religion or other beliefs in the classroom, in my opinion.
So, my advice for festive classes, for what it's worth, is to talk about what everyone is doing, by whatever means is possible in your context. The language they need will emerge through conversation and will not require a vast amount of planning and copying that will fill up those dusty boxes of 'special' Christmas lessons!
* Very young learners are different, I love doing the crafty stuff and sending them all home with something nice, even if it's just a card or something to stick on the wall.
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