Monday 12 October 2020

EFL Material: Halloween

Sol Tovar

Halloween: Vocabulary Worksheets, Flashcards, and more EFL resources for your clasroom. Download this material for free!




Halloween in the EFL/ESL classroom

Holidays and celebrations are always an interesting topic for students of all ages. Talking about Halloween and incorporating information about this celebration in your classes is will engage your students, since they can relate their previous knowledge and experiences to this topic. You can also work with an intercultural analysis of this celebration, comparing and contrasting how Halloween and other celebrations are celebrated in your students' country.

Halloween around the world

Even though the origin of Halloween comes from ancient Celtic traditions, nowadays many people around the world celebrate it. Halloween is also similar in a way to other traditions around the world that are related to autumn, harvests, and honouring the dead, such as Pangangaluwa in the Philippines and Día de los Muertos in Mexico. You can ask your students what they think about Halloween becoming popular in other countries and have them research other similar traditions!

Vocabulary Sheets

Halloween allows you to teach your students new vocabulary related to the celebration. Here you can download my vocabulary sheets, with 40 words related to this celebration!


Download the vocabulary sheets as .pdf!
Choose your format: colour | black and white (printer friendly!)

Halloween Flashcards


These flashcards are based on the vocabulary items from the vocabulary sheets above. You can use them to:
  • Present Halloween vocabulary: Use the flashcards to present the vocabulary to the class.
  • Revise Halloween vocabulary: You can cover the part with the name and ask your students what they see. Then you can reveal the name.
  • Use the cards as story cues: Ask your students to form groups of three or four people. Give each group some random cards and ask them to create a story or conversation that incorporates the vocabulary.
Download the PDF file here!

More Halloween activities

Here you will find other Halloween activities that you can download for free:
  • Spooky Mix-Up! (A0/A1 Level - Children): This is a vocabulary activity around Halloween costumes for children. It includes eight different pictures of children in Halloween costumes. The letters are mixed-up, and they have to put them in order to form the names of the costumes. Vocabulary included: skeleton - pirate - monkey - vampire - superhero - dragon - devil - witch
  • Nothing to be afraid of - Poem by Clara J. Denton (A2/B1/B1+/B2): You can use and adapt this poem to work at different levels.
    • With your A2 students, you can focus more on meaning and vocabulary. Mark words that are related to Halloween. Get the general gist of the story. Ask some comprehension questions: What is the poem about? Who are the people that are mentioned in the poem?
    • With your B1 students, you can focus more on reading between lines. Who is the "narrator" in the poem? How does the "narrator" feel about Halloween? Why shouldn't people be afraid in Halloween?
    • With your B1+ or B2 students you can focus on the complex grammar of the poem. Discuss how poetry bends and tweaks writing conventions. Ask them to rewrite the poem to be "grammatically correct".
  • Write a Ghost Story (A2 level and up): Following this framework, your students can organise their ideas in order to write a spooky story. The first page of the worksheet contains guiding questions whereas the second page includes

If you liked this material, you can check out more of my EFL material on my blog!

Any comments or suggestions? Leave them below in the comments' section!


Sol Tovar / Author & Editor

Freelance EN-ES Translator, EFL Teacher, Profesora de ELE.

0 comments:
Post a Comment