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Dear Reader,

Dare I say: the Christmas holiday break is in sight? I think I dare.

I know, anything could happen from here to the end of next week - particularly with the increasing rates of kids being hopped up on sugar as the holidays arrive. However, 14 December feels like a fairly safe date to declare ourselves "teachers who made it to the end of the school year in one piece".

And a good measure of the arrival of Christmas is - for me, at least - the increase in time I devote to explaining weird British Christmas stuff to students.

I don't know about you, but just this week, I've explained a whole bunch of what seemed random stuff to me, like: why do they hang up stockings? Why are mince pies not made of meat (I'll agree I was initially confused by that one too)?

But one of the most obscure Christmas traditions if you're not from, or well-embedded in, British society, is the panto. Which I can't really blame students for, primarily because looking at a panto, you wouldn't immediately think "Christmas", right? 👇

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But the panto absolutely is a staple of the British Christmas season.

Rooted in the Ancient Roman tradition of the pantomime and the Italian commedia dell'arte, the panto is a family-friendly theatre performance that usually takes place around Christmas. They are typically humorous performances of fables, folk tales and children's stories, they encourage audience participation¹ and they famously involve a fair amount of cross-dressing.

Now, the more eagle-eyed of you will have noticed there is no obvious reference to Christmas in any of it: just for reference, pantos currently near me include Aladdin, The Wizard of Oz and Sleeping Beauty. Not quite the Nativity, really.

When my students asked, I was tempted to chalk this lack of an obvious connection up to "British quirkiness", but then, prompted by my ebbing and flowing commitment to looking like I know what I'm doing as a teacher at least 5% of the time... I looked it up.

So, why on earth is the panto performed at Christmas, of all times? As is often the case, various theories exist. One claims that pantomimes became associated with the Tudor Feast of Fools, by all accounts a rather rowdy celebration that took place around the Christmas period, and that's the reason for the connection. The Victoria and Albert museum, on the other hand, explains that in Victorian times, it became traditional for pantomimes to premiere on Boxing Day (26 December), and that's how the association was created.

Although I suspect I might never find the final answer, I hope my students were satisfied and maybe a little amused, too.

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On the Italy front, this week has been the bearer of a bit of good news if you're in the concorso: the first thresholds to access the oral exams have been published by Friuli Venezia Giulia and in many instances, grades as low as 70-74 were enough. If this is any indication, I would say it bodes well for future thresholds around the country.

So, in the next few weeks, I will be busy a) keeping my fingers crossed for you and b) preparing a new preparation programme for the oral exam.

I'd like to make it as inclusive and effective as possible, so to that end: could you spare 1 minute to tell me your preferences for how to prepare for the oral exam? I want to design a programme that really meets your needs, and for that, I need to know your needs. Think of me as the teacher desperate to do a diagnostic test so she knows where to start. Or think of it as a double Christmas present - for me and hopefully for you!

Gift me 1 minute of your time

I've really appreciated all your responses so far and the more I get, the better the programme will be. So, thank you!

Now, onto the juicy bit of what I'm sure you'll have gathered is going to be a pretty Christmassy newsletter.

This week, I was racking my brain for what Christmas activities I might suggest in today's newsletter. After all, I already have an article (downloadable in pdf!) of 10 of my favourite Christmas lesson activities.

But then, inspiration came from an unexpected place: a social media rage bait discussion. Which I don't normally engage in, but I did lurk this time, because the rage baiting premise was that competence-based teaching is a waste of time and the ruin of Italian school education.

Despite the apparent lack of a valid alternative, loads of people agreed, many reminisced about the good ol' times, and that was that. I suspect the alternative to competence-based teaching is probably knowledge-based education with a good helping of lecture-style teaching. Which... doesn't really fully work, at least for language learning. At least not according to half a century worth of research².

So, I thought: how about making the Christmas newsletter one with realistic tasks? So today, I will tell you about:

• what actually is competence-based education and why it matters
• 7 Christmas-themed realistic tasks to do with your students

Ready? Grab a hot chocolate, settle in and let's go 🚀

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Knowledge or competence? Going beyond a binary that nobody needs

I promise I'm going to be brief with this one and I'm mostly going to stick to language learning because that's what I know a thing or two about. I suspect different subjects will be taught better in different ways and that is why they have their own specialised research looking into it. Plus, wouldn't it be hilarious if I suddenly started blabbing about how to best teach maths when last week I had to stop and do a long division with pen and paper.

So the debate here is (I suspect): developing competences vs. going back to developing knowledge only. Or, for the layman folk: in the good ol' days, we learned a lot of stuff by heart and wasn't life much better?

Which, fair enough: romanticising the past is very common. But when it comes to learning a foreign language, I feel fairly confident saying that you can't only learn the knowledge: you need all of it - knowledge, skills, attitudes. In other words, you need competence. In language learning specifically, the whole debate can be summarised with:

Does this automatically mean you don't need knowledge, e.g. you don't need to know verb endings, how to form question tags or how to pronounce Worcestershire sauce³? It certainly doesn't. The less knowledge you have - of grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, etc. - the more effort your brain will have to make to communicate. A simple example: the more vocabulary you know, the easier it will be for you to comprehend a written or spoken text. Going back to research, it has shown repeatedly that vocabulary size is one of the main predictors - if not the one main predictor - of success in reading and listening.

This also applies to other subjects, not just language learning: have you ever tried to listen to a history podcast on, say, WWII in Italy as opposed to one on the history of China? The more background knowledge, the easier the task.

However, knowledge alone is not enough, certainly not for languages: as you will know if you've tried to order in a busy restaurant in a foreign country, you can know all the irregular verbs, but if you can't ask for what you want, your meal will likely still be terrible. You might later be able to tell the story in the past simple correctly, but your stomach still won't thank you.

That's where tasks come in: in class, you can simulate tasks that resemble realistic scenarios, with their communicative needs. We can quibble on how authentic they are, and how hard to implement they are, but one fact remains: tasks where students use their communicative repertoires to accomplish something, even though they may make a mistake or two (or fifty), are the closest approximation we have to developing language competence.

So, this Christmas, how about doing tasks that somewhat resemble real life - and maybe motivates your students with a genuine need to communicate?

Here are 6 fairly low-prep tasks you might consider:

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1. Write a letter to Santa

Is this a childlike activity? Perhaps. But most people do tell someone what they want for Christmas. For fun, you can have students write a proper "letter to Santa" in the typical genre: they can use prompts or even post it for real. But they can also write a list of things they wish they had, material or immaterial. They could write a letter to a loved one explaining what they wish for in life or they could write a letter to each other with the presents they would like. You could even frame it as a letter in which they explain why they want what they want (which can in turn come in handy when they discuss their wishes with their parents...)

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2. Make a budget and plan for presents

If you're the present-planner/provider in your family, I ask you: is there anything more realistic than simulating the somewhat stressful task of planning, budgeting and executing the provision of Christmas presents for a family?⁴ As someone whose family (and hence present recipients) has multiplied very considerably in just this past year, let me tell you, better learn now than later. Follow on from the previous activity: in groups, students consider their classmates' Christmas lists and make a plan for where and when to get their presents, and with what budget.

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3. Plan a Christmas party

Similar to the previous one: how many times will you have to plan a Christmas party? In pairs or groups, students plan the time, guests, meal, seating chart, budget and, why not, entertainment. They create a poster and briefly present it to the rest of the class. You can then also get the class to vote on the party they would most like to go to!

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4. Write a Christmas card

I love Christmas cards and greeting cards of all descriptions⁵. Students can do a bit of crafting if you have the materials, or hone their digital skills by creating an online card. They write something from the heart for a loved one (or they can look up a little quote in English. The last card I bought said "I really bloody love you", so maybe not that).

5. Make a list of Christmas taboos

Christmas is not necessarily a lovely time for everyone. If you add the fact that most people love ranting a little bit, you've got yourself a Christmas activity. In pairs or small groups, students discuss the things they dislike about Christmas and make a list of their "taboos", e.g. foods that aren't allowed at their party or topics of discussion that are to be avoided at the dinner table.

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6. Play a Christmas game

I will never tire of repeating that genuine games are, for all intents and purposes, tasks. The aim is to win, which is a realistic goal, and unless you pre-determine what specific phrases or vocabulary students should use in the game, it really can be a realistic task. Monopoly, Christmas-themed taboo, snap, Pictionary: take your pick, explain to your students that the more they use English, the more extra points they'll get, and you're in for a real (fun) Christmas treat.

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And with that, I am at the end of my Christmas-themed newsletter for you! I hope it has provided you with some inspiration and if you have 1 minute to gift me, please remember the oral exam questionnaire.

Wishing you a lovely and cosy Sunday with your loved ones.

Take care this Christmas, dear teacher ✨

¹ But from what I am given to understand, this is non-compulsory. Not to be a drama queen, but compulsory audience participation in theatre performances registers as "absolute nightmare to be avoided at all costs" in my mind.

² The rage baiting post claimed that no evidence exists that competence-based education works. Clearly, this is not true, but the more important point is that depending on how you phrase the question, this could be said about most things in education. Educational research gets weaponised and oversimplified a lot, so the cautionary tale is: if you can, don't take other people's words (not even mine!) for it, but always see for yourself what the research has to say.

³ You probably don't, but just in case you're a barbecue aficionado: it's /ˈwʊstəˌʃɪə/.

⁴ You might think that practising how to do this very mundane task is not what education should be about. Indeed, a common criticism of competence-based education is that it has a utilitarian view of the student, i.e. it prepares them to be a future worker, not a future thinker. I agree with the criticism to utilitarian education; I disagree that competence-based education is necessarily utilitarian. Critical thinking and problem solving are two key competences, in fact, and learning to do things with our knowledge can be related to our future work, but it can also simply open our minds to the infinite possibilities of our knowledge.

⁵ Incidentally, this is a good thing because greeting cards are very much a British obsession. Last week I was in a greeting card shop that was so specific they had greeting cards specifically for: mothers, fathers, mothers-in-law, grandmas, grandmas on their anniversary, grandmas for a bereavement, grandmas for a new house, grandmas in the hospital, grandmas with a new pet. Absolutely unreal level of detail.

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​P.S.: My weekly suggestion for things to listen to/watch/read to improve your English while relaxing: I can guarantee that if you, like me, play the Love Actually soundtrack on repeat this Christmas, you, like me, will annoy literally everyone around you, but oh, what Christmas cheer you will spread.

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