Topic-based readers and web-quests

- Bill Bowler, teacher, teacher trainer, and series editor for the Dominoes series
When we use a non-fiction reader telling the story of someone’s life, or describing a historical event,
we usually ask our learners to read these books in order, starting with chapter 1 and reading through
to the end.
With a topic-based reader, where the same topic is explored from different angles in different
chapters, the teaching order can be different.

The Chapters
Let’s use the Oxford Bookworms Factfile reader Seasons and celebrations as an example. The
chapters in this book are:
1. Festivals old and new
2. The year begins
3. National days
4. Lent and Easter
5. Families and fools
6. Summer celebrations
7. Fires and fireworks
8. Remembering
9. Thanksgiving
10. In a new country
11. Christmas

These chapters start with the New Year and finish with Christmas. They deal mainly with festivals in
Britain and other English-speaking countries like the USA and Australia.

But what if the school year in your country starts at a different time (in mid-September – as in Spain,
for example) and you want to use this book as your ‘class reader’ for the first semester of the
academic year? (This means all students have a copy of the book and all of them will read it at the
same time.) In this case, when term begins, you may want to have your learners start by reading
chapter 1 of Seasons and celebrations, which introduces the festival topic. After this, they can jump
to chapters 7, 8 and 9, on autumn celebrations (September, October and November being autumn
months in Spain). A topic-based factual reader is one that you can dip in and out of where and when
you want.

Chapter 11 - Christmas
As we’re currently in December, let’s go straight to the Christmas chapter of the book.
Before your learners read this chapter, show them some Christmassy pictures (see the Christmas
Picture and Word Cards pages) to get them thinking about Christmas and what these Christmassy
things are called in English. Make duplicate sets of the pages, cut them up and give each jumbled set
to a different group. Have learners do a simple word and picture matching race between groups to
practise the words. (Each group in the class gets a set of jumbled word and picture cards. When you
blow a whistle, all groups match the cards in word-picture pairs as fast as they can. The group that
finishes correctly first is the winner.)

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Once the Christmas vocabulary has been activated, give learners the Twelve Questions on the
Christmas Chapter task-sheet (with the answer key cut off) to discuss in pairs, and see to see how
much they know already about Christmas.
Next, ask them to read pages 36-40 of the Seasons and celebration reader (The Christmas chapter).
Once they have read the chapter, put learners in pairs to share answers before taking whole class
feedback. Use the answer key to guide you.

Extension activities
A great thing about topic-based teaching is that teachers can easily find on the internet, or create,
‘extension’ materials on the same topic. (Creating suitable extra texts and tasks for a grammar-based
lesson is harder.)
A nice extension task is getting learners to do a topic-linked ‘web-quest’. Once they have read the
‘Christmas chapter’, give them a task-sheet containing follow-up Christmas questions you have
prepared. Tell them to find the answers on the internet. This can be done as homework (if learners
have internet connections at home or in a local library) or in school (if learners can use a computer lab
there for online research). It is helpful if – before the lesson – you check out suitable websites you can
direct learners to visit. Give a shortlist of useful web addresses to students when you set the web-
quest to make their research easier.

Have a look at the two task-sheets (with a relevant webpage included each time, and cut-off answer
keys). Use the British and American Christmas Traditions Quiz task-sheet to demonstrate the idea of a
web-quest to the whole class. Then put your learners in small groups to do the Christmas Around the
World task-sheet as a group web-quest.

If your students really like the idea of Christmas web-quests, they could make more quests for each
other using other Christmas web-pages you list for them.

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Twelve Questions on the Christmas Chapter Task-sheet

1 Where and when was Jesus born?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………
2 Where can you often find the words ’Season’s greetings’?
……………………………………………………………………………………………………
3 What are Christmas songs called in English?
……………………………………………………………………………………………………
4 Where do English people put their Christmas presents on Christmas Eve?
……………………………………………………………………………………………………
5 What colour are Santa Claus’s clothes? And his hair?
……………………………………………………………………………………………………
6 What present does Santa Claus bring for bad children?
……………………………………………………………………………………………………
7 What food do some children leave for Santa, and for his animals on Christmas Eve?
……………………………………………………………………………………………………
8 What do crackers do when you pull them, and what is in them?
……………………………………………………………………………………………………
9 Who says ‘Happy Christmas’ on the TV to everyone in Britain on Christmas Day?
……………………………………………………………………………………………………
10 When is Boxing Day? Why did it get this name?
……………………………………………………………………………………………………
11 A pantomime is a play with music and songs. What kind of story does it tell?
……………………………………………………………………………………………………
12 When do most people take their Christmas decorations down? Why?
……………………………………………………………………………………………………

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Twelve Questions on the Christmas Chapter Task-sheet (Answer Key)

1 In Bethlehem, about two thousand years ago. (page 36, lines 2-3)
2 On a Christmas card. (page 37, line 8)
3 They are called ‘carols’. (page 37, line 13)
4 Under the Christmas tree. (page 37, lines 24-25)
5 His clothes are red. His hair is white. (page 37, line 27)
6 A piece of black coal. (page 38, lines 1-2)
7 A mince pie for Santa, and some vegetables for his animals. (line 4)
8 They make a loud noise. They have a small game and a paper hat inside. (page 39,
lines 9-10)
9 The Queen. (page 39, lines 13-15)
10 On 26 December. Because people gave boxes of presents to their workers on this
day. (page 39, lines 20-24)
11 A pantomime tell a children’s story, like Cinderella or Aladdin. (page 39, lines 27-28)
12By 6th January. Some people think it’s lucky to leave them up after this date. (page
40, lines 5-8)
British and American Christmas Traditions Quiz
Website: https://www.whychristmas.com/customs/

1. Who invented Christmas crackers and when?

…………………………………………………………………………….
2. Do mince pies have meat in them these days?
…………………………………………………………………………….
3. What do we call a man dressed as an old woman in a pantomime?
…………………………………………………………………………….
4. What do we call a woman dressed as the hero in a pantomime?
…………………………………………………………………………….
5. What do English people do under mistletoe at Christmas?
…………………………………………………………………………….
6. Who began the tradition of Christmas cards in the UK and when?
…………………………………………………………………………….
7. When did advent calendars with chocolate inside become really
popular in the UK and US?
…………………………………………………………………………….
8. When are the Twelve Days of Christmas?
…………………………………………………………………………….
9. Which Christian meanings can we find in candy canes?
…………………………………………………………………………….
10.When did Christmas trees first become popular in England? Why?
…………………………………………………………………………….

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British and American Christmas Traditions Quiz (Answer Key)

1. A London Sweet maker, Tom Smith, in 1845-50.
2. No, modern mince pies are filled with dried fruits and spices.
3. A Pantomime Dame.
4. The Principal Boy.
5. They kiss under it.
6. Sir Henry Cole, in 1843.
7. In the 1980s.
8. They start on 25th December and finish on 5th January.
9. The J shape is for ‘Jesus’; the white colour is because Jesus was very
pure; the red colour is for Jesus’s blood; the peppermint taste is for
healing plants in the Bible.
10.In 1841. Prince Albert, the German husband of Queen Victoria, put
a Christmas tree up in Windsor castle that year.
Christmas Around the World Web-Quest
Website: https://www.whychristmas.com/cultures/

1. When is Christmas Day in Egypt?

…………………………………………………………………………….
2. What do Chinese people call Father Christmas?
…………………………………………………………………………….
3. What do people in Hungary eat on Christmas Eve?
…………………………………………………………………………….
4. Which animals pull Santa’s sleigh in Australia?
…………………………………………………………………………….
5. Which country does Norway give a big Christmas tree to each year?
…………………………………………………………………………….
6. Who serves the food and coffee on Christmas night in Greenland?
…………………………………………………………………………….
7. When do Christmas plays end in the Democratic Republic of Congo?
…………………………………………………………………………….
8. What Christmas decoration do many Italian people make in Naples?
…………………………………………………………………………….
9. Why do Bulgarians count dishes and guests at the Christmas Eve
dinner?
…………………………………………………………………………….
10.When do Colombians start celebrating and preparing Christmas?
…………………………………………………………………………….

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Christmas Around the World Web-Quest (Answer Key)

1. On 7th January.
2. Shen dan lao ren (Old Christmas Man).
3. Fish soup, stuffed cabbage, poppy cake.
4. Kangaroos (or ‘six white boomers’).
5. Britain.
6. The men.
7. At about one o’clock in the morning on Christmas Day.
8. The Christmas crib.
9. Dishes and guests at the Christmas Eve dinner must be odd
numbers: like 7, 9 and 11.
10.On 7th December.