Are you looking for Halloween activities for your ESL class? In a class full of ESL students, you can generate interesting discussions about the different Halloween traditions around the globe.

If you teach ESL to adults or teens, it can be difficult to find Halloween activities that are not childish. Here are a few activities that older students will enjoy.

Halloween Questionnaire

I love getting my students to engage in discussions with native English speakers. If you teach on a college campus, have students go to the student commons, cafeteria, or campus square and ask students about Halloween. Create a survey with the following questions:

• – What are some common Halloween traditions?
• – Are you celebrating Halloween this year? If so, what will you do?
• – Will you dress up for Halloween this year, and if so, what will you be?
• – What is trick-or-treating?
• – What are some popular Halloween songs?
• – What are some popular Halloween movies?
• – What is your favorite Halloween candy?

If students are shy, they can work in pairs. Give them a time limit for when they need to meet back in the classroom. Then have students share what information they got from their surveys.

Halloween Symbols Activity

Do a collaborative activity about common Halloween symbols! Jigsaw activities are great for practicing all skills: reading, writing, listening and speaking. Give each student a Halloween symbol to research. Have them look up the origin of their symbol and share the information with their group.

Here is a list of Halloween symbols:

• – Black cats
• – The colors black and orange
• – Trick-or-treating
• – Jack-o-lanterns
• – Skeletons
• – Bats

Here is a pre-made Halloween jigsaw activity from my store: 

Superstitions Activity

Superstitions are popular in many cultures, so you’ll find some common ground with this topic. Activate background knowledge by writing “Superstition” on the board and asking students what they already know about this topic. Once they get the general idea of what a superstition is, share a list of 5-10 popular superstitions from American culture and generate a discussion on other superstitions from around the world. Here are some common superstitions:

• – Don’t let a black cat cross your path
• – Walking under a ladder is bad luck
• – Step on a crack, break your mama’s back
• – Friday the 13th is bad luck
• – If you spill salt, toss some over your left shoulder or you’ll have bad luck
• – Knock on wood

To turn this into a longer activity, give each student (or pair or students) one superstition and have them research the origin. How did this superstition begin? Some of these started centuries ago, and their origins are strange! 

Read Short Stories

More advanced students can do reading activities based on spooky short stories like these:

• – The Landlady by Roald Dahl
• – The Telltale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe
• – The Monkey’s Paw by W.W. Jacobs
• – A Gentle Ghost by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

You can read the stories as a whole group, or you can assign one story to small groups of students, and they can do literature circles. 

Some of these stories have short film/animated film adaptations on YouTube!

Try these Halloween activities in your adult ESL class this month!