Theme: Valentine's Day
Lexical area: Love, dating and romance
Instructions for language assistants in Italics
Introduction
Did you know that in the UK we spend about £503m on cards, flowers, chocolates and other gifts for Valentine's Day? Valentine's Day is big business! This lesson is designed to be used near the date of Valentine's Day (February 14th) to talk about the topic of love and romance. If you are teaching young teenagers you can expect this topic to cause a bit of excitement and silliness but usually it's a topic that teens want to talk about so can be a great opportunity to extend their vocabulary in an area that they are interested in.
Task 1 is a brainstorm of vocabulary for you to find out how much vocabulary your students have and to introduce some new words. Task 2 is a selection of well-known quotes about love for students to discuss. Task 3 gets students to think about how people usually meet each other in their country. Task 4 is a reading text from the British Council's Trend UK website which should introduce some ideas for students to discuss using the post reading activity. Task 5 follows on from the information in the text that many more British people now send text messages rather than cards on Valentine's day. Students have the chance to create their own romantic text message in English. Task 6 is a role play based on speed dating and can be adapted for most levels. Task 7 is a ranking activity to decide how important love is in our lives.
1. Valentine's vocab
To get students thinking about the topic of Valentine's day draw a big heart on the board and see if your students can fill it with words to do with love. Depending on the level make sure you try to stretch their vocabulary so everyone takes away a few useful words they didn't know before.
Task 1 Valentine's vocab
Write as many words connected to love and relationships in the heart as you can.
2. Love quotes
Pick and choose the quotes you use depending on the level of your students. If you have to spend ages trying to explain each one the activity will lose its fun. Cut up the quotes and give them to pairs or small groups to decipher (translate into their own language if you feel it's appropriate and useful) and comment on.
Task 2 Love quotes
Comment on these quotes about love. Do you agree with any of them? Do you disagree with any of them?
| "If you love someone, let them go. If they come back they’re yours. If they don’t, they never were..." |
| "Love is hard work; and hard work sometimes hurts!" |
| We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly." |
| “Love one another and you will be happy. It's as simple and as difficult as that.” |
| “We cannot really love anybody with whom we never laugh.” |
| “There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness. “ |
| “Love makes the time pass. Time makes love pass. “ |
| “If so many men, so many minds, certainly so many hearts, so many kinds of love. “ |
| “It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” |
- Do you know any well known quotes about love in your language? If you can, try to translate them into English.
- • Write your favorite love quote here and then tell the group.
3. Looking for love
UK info - There are 11 million single adults in the UK and the prediction is that in 2010 there will be 16 million. You could use this as an introduction into this task.
Task 3 Looking for love
- What are the advantages and disadvantages of being single?
- What are the advantages and disadvantages of having a boyfriend / girlfriend?
- If you want to meet people in your country how do you go about it?
- Is it easy or difficult to meet new people?
- Do you think the internet is a popular way of meeting new people in your country?
4. I sent a letter to my love... Reading task
This is a reading task from the Trend UK website and should be suitable for intermediate levels and above. It should give you the basis for talking about Valentine's day in the UK. The post reading questions can be used as a starting point for further discussion.
1) What is different about Valentine's day cards to cards for other occasions? They're usually anonymous
2) Which is more popular in the UK - sending cards by ‘snail mail' or sending text messages? Text messaging (6 times more texts than cards sent in the UK last year)
3) Do you think text messaging is a good way to declare your love? Students' opinions
4) What are the most common gifts to give on Valentine's day? Flowers and chocolates
5) Name two of the more interesting Valentine's day gifts mentioned in the article. Any two from helicopter ride, balloon flight, Ferrari test drive or visit to a health club
Task 4 I sent a letter to my love... Reading task
Read the text about Valentine's day in the UK and then discuss the questions below with your group.
Valentine's Day - I sent a letter to my love... February 14th is traditionally a celebration of love, so how do people in the UK mark the occasion?
Sending a Valentine's card to a loved one is a custom that has been going on for at least 150 years if not longer. Couples will give them to each other, but it is also common to send an anonymous card to anyone you secretly love. This practice is particularly common in schools and can be a source of great amusement and embarrassment as everyone tries to work out who send a card to whom!
Another way of letting someone know you love them on Valentine's Day is to put an advert in a newspaper. Nowadays web message boards and mobile phone texting are taking over this role - on Valentine's Day 2008 an estimated 80 million texts were sent between mobile phones, which was six times the number of cards sent by ‘snail mail'. Suggested texts include:
As well as cards, Valentine's Day also brings a lot of gift giving, though it is usually men who are
For those who think that these seem a little mundane, there is an ever increasing range of slightly This article originally appeared on the Trend UK website |
1) What is different about Valentine's day cards to cards for other occasions?
2) Which is more popular in the UK - sending cards by ‘snail mail' or sending text messages?
3) Do you think text messaging is a good way to declare your love?
4) What are the most common gifts to give on Valentine's day?
5) Name two of the more interesting Valentine's day gifts mentioned in the article.
5. Valentine's text message
If you have done task four (or used the Essential UK on Mobile Phones) the students will have some ideas of how to abbreviate words to write text messages in English. If you haven't done task four, spend some time with students asking how they think they could shorten the following words into ‘text English'
You - (u)
Love - (luv)
For - (4)
Too - (2) etc..
Task 5 Valentine's text message
You decide to send a romantic text message to someone you secretly love. Write your text message here:
Now change text messages with other people in your class and see if you can re-write them into correct English!
6. Speed dating game
Speed dating is a popular way to meet people in the UK. It was designed in LA in the 90's for singles who don't have time to go out much to look for love! Speed dates are organised all over the UK and in many other countries too. The idea is people pay to attend (usually ₤15+) and all the participants meet in a bar or a club. An equal number of men and women attend. The men rotate and have three minutes (in some cases seven minutes) to speak to each woman. At the end all participants decide if they would like to meet anyone again and give the numbers of the people they were interested in to the organisers. If both the man and the women decided they would like to see each other again the phone numbers or e-mails are exchanged and it's up to the two people involved to follow it up. (In case your students ask, there are also gay speed date events in the UK.)
- This is a role play activity based on the idea of speed dating. It is suitable for a range of levels from pre-intermediate upwards. Questions can be very simple or more complex depending on the level of the students.
- Before you start do a quick brainstorm of possible jobs, hobbies, interests and personality types and make sure there are a few unusual ones to make for some comical encounters. If you think your class need to, you could also brainstorm some possible questions for them to ask each other on their ‘speed dates' so they don't get stuck once the three minutes begin. You could reduce the time to one minute for lower levels.
- If your students have never heard of speed dating, explain the idea to them and get their opinions.
- Warning: I would probably only do this role play with a reasonably mature group of students!
Task 6. Speed dating game
- Have you ever heard of Speed Dating?
- Do you think you can judge somebody's character in 3 minutes?
- Do you think Speed Dating is a good way to meet people?
- Do you agree with the saying, ‘First impressions count'?
You are going to play a speed dating game.
1) Invent a character for yourself. Fill in the details on your card
2) Set up the classroom for a speed dating event. (Chairs in twos around the room)
3) Decide who is going to rotate every three minutes
4) Spend three minutes chatting to each person (in the character of the person on your role card)
5) At the end have a chat with the group and decide who you think should which couple should go on a second ‘date'!
| Speed dating role play card Name: Age: Job: Hobbies: Interests: Personality: Name: Age: Job: Hobbies: Interests: Personality: | Speed dating role play card Name: Age: Job: Hobbies: Interests: Personality: Name: Age: Job: Hobbies: Interests: Personality: |
Speed dating role play card
| Speed dating role play card Name: Age: Job: Hobbies: Interests: Personality: Name: Age: Job: Hobbies: Interests: Personality: |
7. How important is love anyway?!
This is a simple ranking activity. Put students into small groups to talk together and put the following in order of importance for them. Then ask two groups to compare their answers.
Task 7. How Important is love anyway?!
Work in groups and put the following in order of importance for you.
Money / Friends / Family / Love / Health / Happiness /
Internet links
CBBC Newsround site. A great quiz here and a lovely page with ‘I love you' in 55 different languages. http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_1770000/newsid_1779400/1779489.stm -
A great website from Woodlands primary school. This page is all about Valentine's day traditions in the UK.
http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/questions/valentine.htm -
BBC food has some Valentine's day recipes here.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/news_and_events/events_valentinesday.shtml -
This site has some examples of people who are looking for love on the internet.
http://www.guardiansoulmates.co.uk/s/ -
By Jo Budden
First Published 2008
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| valentine_day.pdf | 70.12 KB |
- Login or register to post comments
Printer-friendly version
