LESSON PLAN FOR ENGLISH TEACHERSDAY OF THE DEAD
Oct. 20, 2022
Level: Intermediate (B1-B2)
Type of language: General English
Tags: Celebrations and Special Events; Religions and Religious Activities; Ethics and Conduct; Vocabulary Lesson; Video; 16-18 Years Old; 18+ Years Old; 13-15 Years Old
Publication date: 10/20/2022
Students watch a video on Mexico's Day of the Dead, which is celebrated on November 2nd. The vocabulary-focused worksheet includes a range of interactive activities including a crossword puzzle.
- CLICK HERE to download the student’s worksheet in American English.
- CLICK HERE to download the teacher’s lesson plan in American English.
- CLICK HERE to download the student’s worksheet in British English.
- CLICK HERE to download the teacher’s lesson plan in British English.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
The Mexican Day of the Dead
Omar Regalado Fernandez: The Day of the Dead is regarded as a time where the dead can come alive again. The dead is nothing we have to be afraid of, it is just a part of life that we have to face and in Mexican culture that has become actually really important in the way we perceive life.
Laura Osorio Sunnucks: The Day of the Dead is a festival and, in that sense, it is very much a celebration, and I suppose that is something that appeals to European and North American people because that’s not the way we understand death. Death is for us, a sad moment. We do remember our dead, but we remember them in times of solemnity.
Betsabee Romero: I can see how this kind of tradition gets (a) connection with other people... this celebration is a demonstration of generosity, with richness of color and with the sound, with the air, with the paper that moves, the talk between all the family. Not with sadness, not like someone that we lost but like someone who is still with us.
Laura Osorio Sunnucks: It’s a multi-sensory experience, I think both for the people who make the altar and for the dead that visit. People go on journeys with the offerings and take them to their burial places and they’re sort of exploring this idea of the boundary between the living and the dead. It’s a liminal... place and liminal places often need catalysts to bring things closer together. They eat together and of course, listen to music and remember fondly their dead.
Betsabee Romero: What is interesting in this celebration is not that death... is coming to eat or is coming to drink on the night because we cannot see them. The grandmother says that they take the spirit of things, and they take the love of us.
Omar Regalado Fernandez: It’s really impressive how the atmosphere becomes really really nice. The smell of all the flowers that have been torn apart to create that atmosphere actually makes you feel that you are going to something else beyond life. It’s conveyed by the flowers and it’s really weird because it’s the same smell, but it can tell you so many different things.
Betsabee Romero: Day of the Dead as well is something to show us how the colonizations and the changes in the history of our country may include new things but preserve tradition.
Laura Osorio Sunnucks: What we’re really talking about is what you see in a lot of cultures, which is material culture or images and ideas being transferred through time, obviously evolving as they come into contact with other cultures, so Mexican culture is very much a mix of the different pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican cultures that existed before the Spanish conquest and all the influence that came from Europe which wasn’t just from Spain.
Betsabee Romero: I appreciate the sense of celebration, to be able to celebrate even the death, people continue their life on the memories of others. And I think memories are really important, in a world where it’s so easy to forget.
Adapted from: https://www.linguahouse.com/esl-lesson-plans/general-english/day-of-the-dead. Accessed on October 28, 2025. LinguaHouse.com © 2008–2025. All rights reserved.
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