Easter in your English class

 

Would you like to introduce the theme of Easter in your English class or International English café?

In this short blog, we’ll show you how we can use a very basic text on what happened on Easter Sunday and build a lesson around festivals, that allows us to talk to our learners about the importance of Easter for Christians.

In the video you’ll watch at the end of this page, William from Christian TEFL outlines how we could take a class from talking about festivals and religious holidays in their countries to introducing the theme of Easter here in the UK. We then set it in the context of everyday life – things that internationals will see in shops and the media, activities that their children might be doing in schools, such as Easter egg hunts or egg decoration.

Then we’ll introduce the real story of Easter, which is Jesus’s death and resurrection.

In the video, William has used a short text, which gives us the opportunity to tell the story in a very basic way, which then gives a platform for going further in table discussions.

If you’d like to go further, here are some useful resources that we found that could be helpful for you.

 

Freely available online Easter material

The good news is there is lots of material available freely online, especially around the topics of Christmas and Easter.

We have created a list of material on how to introduce the bible in English classes here, which is a good starting point. This blog is a good starting point.

From that list, for English classes, the downloadable material from Grace Community Church, USA, entitled From Beginning to End, is helpful for intermediate levels. Easter specific lessons are at lessons 8 and 9, although there is some more great material on the key stories in the bible throughout. You will also find a link to the downloadable student pages here.

Alternatively, if you’d like a ‘print and teach’ one-off lesson, you can find an idea here.

 

Material for international cafes

If you are looking for table questions for cafes, then these all have some useful examples:

http://iteslj.org/questions/easter.html

https://esldiscussions.com/e/easter.html

https://teflpedia.com/Easter_conversation_questions

You might find these conversation questions a different approach which is less formal and possible more suitable for a cafe-style approach, but it depends on which way you want to go.

 

Material incorporating video

If moving pictures is more your thing, then this is an interesting video on different traditions around that world that will get a conversation going, although it might not be for the squeamish:

Personally, we really like the Bible Project’s short video, which also come with subtitles. It might be a little fast for your lower levels, but YouTube allows you to play it at .75 speed, which slows it down. The great thing is that come with subtitles, and the visuals really support the story.

This is made for kids, but again it’s visual and slightly easier English.

So, if you would like to introduce Jesus into a secular English teaching environment, we hope that these ideas and materials help you.

Now watch William on the short video below on how you can start a conversation around the reason for Easter.

Enjoy your teaching, and Happy Easter!