There isn’t a lot of vocabulary associated with Valentine’s Day, and most of that rarely comes up in normal conversation. For that reason, perhaps the best way to make an interesting and useful topical lesson in mid-February is with a grammar lesson with a Valentine’s Day theme. This article gives some ideas on how to teach grammar such as tenses at the same time as discussing Valentine’s Day and maybe love and relationships more generally. There is also another article with ideas that are more focused on Valentine’s Day vocabulary.
Valentine’s Day lessons teaching tenses/ verb forms
Valentine’s Day future forms review
Pairs of students see which future sentences like “I’d like to eat less chocolate on Valentine’s Day this year” and “I think I’ll mark Valentine’s Day less and less as I get older” are true for both of them, share one thing in common with the class, analyse the sentences for how the future forms are used, then use them to talk about other future festivals and celebrations.
Valentine’s Day adverbs of frequency definitions game
Students define words related to Valentine’s Day by saying how common they are at different times and in different places with hints like “In this country people sometimes send these for Valentine’s Day, but usually send them for Xmas” and “People only usually buy these once or twice in their lives”.
Valentine’s Day stories past tenses practice
Students work together to use given vocabulary like “expensive”, “romantic”, “confession”, “ex” and “missing” to tell interesting stories happening on Valentine’s Day.
Present Continuous with Valentine’s Day vocabulary games
Students mime and/ or draw “You are eating chocolates”, “You are showing off your new diamond ring”, etc until their partner guesses what sentence they chose.
Going to and first conditional Valentine’s Day predictions chains
In groups of three or four, one student says a real or imaginary plan for Valentine’s Day like “We are just going to stay home and watch Netflix on Valentine’s Day” and their partners say what might happen in that case in chains like “If you just stay home and watch Netflix, you might argue about what to watch”, “If you argue about what to watch, your partner might storm out of the house without you”, etc.
Valentine’s Day second conditional questions
The topic of Valentine’s Day is not really suitable for personal questions like “Have you ever…?”, so it’s best to make such questions theoretical like “If someone sent you 100 roses anonymously, would you try to find out who they were?” This is most fun if students try to guess the answers before they ask the questions. To make this easier, students can start by using given second conditional questions, use given question stems to make similar questions, and finally making their own questions.
Valentine’s Day lessons teaching other grammar points
There is/ are and/ or prepositions Valentine’s Day drawing games
Students give each other instructions like “There is a cupid next to a huge heart” for the other person to draw on a card, on some paper or on the board. The sentences can be made from cut up cards with those kinds of words on, made from words on a worksheet, or just made up. When the pictures are finished, they could describe what they can see, test each other on their memories of the pictures, and/ or vote for the most romantic, the funniest, etc.
Valentine’s Day vocabulary passive voice definitions game
Students define words like “diamond” with sentences with passive voice like “They are put into rings”, “They are made from carbon”, “They are mined in South Africa” and “I have never been given one” until their partner guesses what they are talking about. Students will probably need help with this such as a list of suggested hints or a table with useful verbs.
Valentine’s Day lessons teaching adjective word order
Students choose if they want “a single long-stemmed rose”, “a huge expensive box of luxury dark chocolates”, etc, try to remember the order that those words were in, try to work out the rules of word order, then make similar sentences with mixed adjectives.
Valentine’s Day superlatives drawing game
Students compete to draw “The thinnest heart”, “The cutest cupid”, “The most romantic dinner table”, etc, perhaps starting with given ideas, then making their own ideas from a table, and finally making their own drawing challenges with no help.
Valentine’s Day comparative picture dictation
Students explain a picture for their partner to draw while they can see what is being drawn but their partner can’t see the original picture, with advice like “No, the candles need to be taller”.
Valentine’s Day superlatives recommendations
Students try to think of the best recommendations for “The cheapest romantic Valentine’s Day”, “The most romantic film to watch together on Valentine’s Day”, “The worst Valentine’s Day present” and “The best thing for singles to do on Valentine’s Day”.
Valentine’s Day numbers guessing game
Students ask each other to guess numbers on their worksheet with questions like “How many roses were exported from Africa last year?”, and give hints like “much higher” and “slightly lower” until their partner gets exactly the right number.
Valentine’s Day countable and uncountable review
Students choose how much or how many of certain things are good on Valentine’s Day (“a few anonymous Valentine’s Day cards”, “lots of music”, etc), perhaps after choosing from some pairs which include unsuitable options because of confusion with this grammar (“Would you like a card or some card?”, etc).
Valentine’s Day vocabulary relative clauses definitions game
Students define which Valentine’s Day words or phrases they are thinking of with clues like “It’s a place where couples often go on Valentine’s Day”, “It’s a person who feels sad on Valentine’s Day”, and “It’s a thing that only rich people give on Valentine’s Day”.
Valentine’s Day phrasal verbs practice
The best Valentine’s Day activity for this language point is probably giving solutions to problems including phrasal verbs like “We haven’t been getting on recently, so I want to rekindle the romance on Valentine’s Day” and “I want to split up with my girlfriend but it is Valentine’s Day tomorrow”.
Phrasal verbs can also be put into several of the activities above, e.g. “breaking up” in the definitions game.