Bring Festive Energy into Your Classroom with Christmas ESL Activities
These Christmas ESL activities include ready-to-use lessons, worksheets, classroom games, and speaking activities for teens and adults. Christmas is the perfect time to boost motivation and engagement in ESL classes.
If you’re looking for practical ESL Christmas lesson ideas, you’ll find a mix of games and quizzes, speaking and discussion activities, vocabulary-focused lessons, and culture-based resources. Several of the activities below are also available as free downloads, making them ideal for last-minute lessons or end-of-term revision.
Christmas ESL Games & Quizzes
These Christmas ESL games are ideal for end-of-term lessons and mixed-ability classes. They use quizzes, puzzles, and team-based activities to encourage participation,friendly competition, and meaningful language practice.
Christmas Speaking & Discussion
These speaking and discussion activities help students practise fluency, share opinions, and communicate naturally in a festive context. They work especially well with teen and adult learners and can be used in pairs, small groups, or whole-class discussions.
Christmas Vocabulary & Language Focus
For more structured language work, these Christmas ESL resources focus on building and revising seasonal vocabulary. They are easy to slot into lessons as warm-ups, controlled practice, or calmer end-of-term activities.
⭐ Free Christmas ESL Activities
The following Christmas ESL activities are available as free downloads. They’re perfect for cover classes, last-minute planning, or relaxed end-of-term lessons. All resources are printable and suitable for teens and adults.
Some of our free Christmas ESL activities are also shared on platforms like ISL Collective, where teachers exchange classroom-tested materials.
If you’re short on time, a simple structure works well: start with a 5-minute warmer (e.g., quick vocabulary review), then move into a speaking or quiz activity, and finish with a short reflection or recap. This keeps energy high while still giving learners repeated exposure to key language. You can also recycle the same Christmas vocabulary across different tasks (games, quizzes, and speaking prompts) to reinforce meaning and improve recall.
Other Christmas ESL Activity Ideas to Try
Alongside structured lessons and worksheets, many teachers like to include lighter Christmas ESL activities to keep students motivated at the end of term. Simple games such as Christmas Hangman, word searches, or vocabulary bingo are easy to set up and work well as warmers or fillers.
Food-related topics are also popular in ESL classes at Christmas. Discussing traditional Christmas food from different countries, comparing meals, or creating simple menus gives students a familiar context for practising vocabulary and speaking skills. These activities work particularly well with teens and adults, who enjoy sharing personal experiences and cultural traditions.
Short Christmas games, quizzes, and speaking prompts can also be combined with your main lesson to create a relaxed but purposeful class atmosphere. Even low-prep activities, when guided with clear language goals, can lead to meaningful communication and confidence-building practice.
✨ Want Access to Even More ESL Resources?
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If you’d like full access, our membership gives you unlimited access to 530+ ESL lesson plans, games, and activities for just €25.05 for 6 months — with resources available across all levels,
from A1 to C2.
All materials are classroom-tested, teacher-friendly, and designed specificallyfor teen and adult learners.
✨ Finish the Term with Confidence
We hope these Christmas ESL activities, games, and worksheets help you create engaging and stress-free end-of-term lessons. All resources are classroom-tested, teacher-friendly, and designed specifically for teen and adult ESL learners.
Our New Year ESL activities will be published separately, so you can start the next term organised and ready to go.
