Teacher’s Notes
Easter
Type of activity: group work, pair work and
individual work
Focus: vocabulary connected with Easter: symbols,
traditions, celebrations, Eastertime days (e.g.
Shrove Tuesday, Ash Wednesday, Lent); vocabulary
from reading: crucifixion, repentance, deserving,
resurrection; reading skills, speaking skills, writing
skills
Level: intermediate – upper intermediate
Time: 45 minutes
Preparation: Photocopy the student’s worksheets:
worksheet 1 – one per student, worksheet 2 – one
per student or one per pair.
Procedure:
1. Briefly introduce the students to the topic of
Easter by asking some questions: When is Easter
this year? On what day of the Holy Week do people
usually start Easter celebrations? Do you like
Easter? Why (not)? Can you name any of the days
of the Holy Week? Do not go into detail at this
point and keep the conversation rather informal
(do not insist on answers if the students don’t
know them), as the students will learn more about
the holiday in the course of the lesson.
2. Distribute Worksheet 1. Explain that on the
worksheet there are names of different Eastertime
days, starting from the beginning of Lent. Tell the
students that their task is to form the names of
the days and match them with the descriptions.
Allow the students to work on Point 1 for 5–6
minutes and compare their answers/guesses in
pairs.
3. Ask the students to read the instruction in Point 2.
Explain that you would like them to think of the
meaning of the words marked in the descriptions
and discuss them in pairs. After 3–4 minutes,
elicit the meaning of the words from the class
and explain any doubts that the students may
have.
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4. Finally, ask the students to look at the Easter
traditions (the underlined words) in the
descriptions. Students work in groups of 4 and
speculate about the ideas behind these traditions.
After about 5 minutes, elicit ideas from the
groups.
Explanations:
Hot cross buns are lightly sweet yeast buns with
a characteristic sign of the cross on them, eaten
on Good Friday (and, more and more popularly,
during the whole of Easter). Lent is a 6-week
period of time before Easter, during which people
fast and give up things they normally enjoy doing.
Pancake Tuesday is the last day before Lent. It
is customary on that day to eat pancakes and
organise pancake races, during which people
run with a pan in their hand. The tradition of
putting Easter eggs (real or chocolate ones) in
Easter baskets is universal across different
countries. The baskets are usually given to
people as presents. Egg hunts and egg rolls
are examples of Easter games that are popular in
English-speaking countries. An egg roll is a
competition during which eggs are rolled with a
spoon along the grass (or floor) as quickly as
possible. In egg hunts, eggs are hidden in various
places (in the home or garden) and the
competitors’ task is to find as many as possible.
5. Ask the students to think about the date of Easter
Monday this year (April 1). Ask if they associate
the date with any other kind of holiday (April
Fools’ Day). Distribute Worksheet 2 and go
through Points 1–3 with the students, allowing
them some time to work in pairs on each of the
points before you discuss them. When you
discuss Point 2, you may want to emphasise that
the basic rule of a good prank is that you should
never aim at harming others, either emotionally
or physically.
FOLLOW-UP TO WORKSHEET 2: The students
write a paragraph describing a practical joke which
was once played on them or which they played on
somebody.
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