ESL Activities - St Valentine's Day

Last year I had a very successful class devoted to St Valentine's Day. I hope it may be useful for some of my colleagues:

1. Decorate your class for this occasion. A month before Valentine's start a contest for the best Valentine's card and for a poem or translation of a piece of poetry devoted to the topic. Make an exhibition of best works.
   
   
2. Start your class with some nice poem (eg "It's Valentine's Day" by Jack Prelutsky) or song about love. You can give your students a chance to listen to it and after that they can do a "fill-in" test using the song (eg "And I love her" by the Beatles is very nice to hear and to write the words - I have even used it as a dictation).
   
   
3. Put the question: "What is "love"?" Give some dictionary definitions. Then ask students to create their own definition of love. You can use the poem "Love is..." by Greg Scelsa as an example.
   
   
4. The next question is "Why do people love each other?" Start with the poem "I love you more than applesauce" by Jack Prelutsky and after the discussion ask students to create their own "I love you more than..." poems.
   
   
5. Don't forget to praise the winners of the contest somehow and to show the best works.
   
   
6. Finish your class with some more songs about love.

Contributor: Olga Viniarskaya