Different countries have different traditions that they follow when celebrating the new year, whether it’s quickly eating twelve grapes at the stroke of midnight (Spain) to wearing special underwear (Latin America). Ask your students about their own personal or cultural traditions and learn about even more in this lesson plan!

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Type: Reading, Vocabulary

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Level: Pre-Intermediate/Intermediate/Upper-Intermediate

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Lesson Aims: Learners will develop reading skills and review/expand their knowledge of New Year related vocabulary. They will also develop their speaking fluency through summarizing an article verbally.

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Note to the Teacher: Fireworks, New Year resolutions, and singing “Auld Lang Syne” are not always a must in every country. This lesson explores the different ways people ring in the New Year. This lesson works best with multi-lingual and multi-cultural groups, but the introduction could be adapted for a mono-lingual group of students from the same country. It starts off with a personalized introduction to the theme where students can exchange information about their personal and national New Year traditions, if they have any.

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The lesson then moves on to students reading and learning about New Year traditions from around the world, some of which are quite bizarre which they share with members of the class. The final activity really lets their imaginations run wild as students get to generate and share their own New Year resolutions.

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Download the lesson materials and lesson plan here: A Teaching House New Year!