Love is in the air, and so is the excitement of incorporating Valentine’s Day-themed activities into ESL classrooms. ❤️ In this article, we’ll explore five unusual ESL Valentine’s Day activities that you can add to your lessons this year. Whether you’re teaching in person or online, in groups or individually, these activities are sure to engage your students and – naturally – level up their English.
Five Languages of Love
Watch this video together with your students – or any other similar video about the theory of Five Languages of Love developed by Gary Chapman. Then play the following game 🎲:
Ask each student to write down one example of how people can express love on a separate piece of paper or a post-it. Ask them not to write the name of the love language they are giving examples of. Fold the papers and put them in a box. Now let your students take one piece each, read it and guess which love language the examples are showcasing.
You can download the full ESL lesson plan about Five Languages of Love (B2) here.
Looking for Someone Special
Find six or more dating profiles where people are talking about themselves and describing the person they are looking for. (Pssst! These can be easily generated from scratch at twee.com in literally seconds). These are usually super rich in descriptive adjectives and phrases – an excellent resource to expand your students’ vocabulary. Ask your students to read the descriptions and decide whether some candidates could be a perfect match for each other. Create additional exercises to practice the new words, such as word-definition matching or a fill-in-the-gap.
You can find a full Valentine’s Day lesson plan based on this topic here.
Funny Dates Grammar
Find a Reddit thread about the funniest dates that people have been on, such as this one. Shorten and simplify the stories, if needed. Throw in some gaps instead of linkers, prepositions, articles or whatever it is you’re practicing this week. Have your students read the stories and fill in the gaps in pairs. Check together.
Download the full ESL lesson plan based on this activity here.
I Hate Valentine’s Day
😈 Not everyone loves it, right? We have some activities for Valentine’s haters, too.
Activity 1 – Haters’ Party
Divide the students into pairs. Instruct them to imagine that they are organizing an anti-Valentine’s Day event for single people. Ask them to brainstorm ideas for activities, games, and decorations that would make the event fun and enjoyable for everyone. After a few minutes, have each pair share their ideas with the class.
Activity 2 – Ultimate Love
Give your students this quote by Oscar Wilde: “To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.” Ask them to discuss what this quote means to them and how it relates to the concept of self-love and being content with being single. Encourage them to share personal experiences or examples from popular culture that illustrate this idea.
Download this lesson plan for those haters who have achieved level C1 in English.
AI Love
This one is perfect for those embracing the new technologies. If you’re teaching higher-level students, watch this video together. Then divide your students into pairs and assign each pair a role: one student will be an AI chatbot, and the other will be a person seeking emotional support. Instruct the pairs to have a conversation where the person seeks comfort and advice from the AI chatbot. After a few minutes, have the pairs switch roles and repeat the activity. Ask the students to note how their language changes when they play each role.
As homework, you can give your students a task to chat with a real language model, such as Chat GPT or other open source models. Tell them to convince the interlocutor to go on a date with them, ask them to bring screenshots as proof of success!
You can download the full lesson about AI Love here.
Check out our Youtube video to see how we did all this in real time:
As we wrap up our exploration of these five unique ESL activities for Valentine’s Day, remember that the key to a successful lesson is not just in the content, but in the connection and joy it brings to your students. Sign up on Twee to create unique lessons tailored exactly to your students interests and needs:
