Michelle's independent resources for ESL Students at Vancouver Community College

This is a Canadian ESL blog for Intermediate and Advanced Students who want to learn and improve their English. Each PAGE above contains thousands of free English lessons, tutorials and practice exercises to help you learn and improve your English grammar, reading, listening, pronunciation, speaking, writing and editing. Some of the resources are Canadian. Others are from around the world.

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Wednesday, December 12, 2012

ESL Christmas: Home for the Holidays





























One of the most important parts of any holiday, whether it be Christmas, Hanukkah, Lunar New Year,  or Kwanzaa  is coming home to be with your family and friends. 

Many Christmas songs focus on how lonely people are when they can't be with their loved ones. 

Sometimes this is is because they live in different places. Other times, one person is  traveling or working away from home. 


Thinking about Home
No matter what the reason, Christmas or any other holiday can be a time of loneliness and homesickness when we find ourselves thinking of home....wherever that may be.  

Canada is a country full of immigrants, many of whom have left family and friends back in countries such as China, Korea, Poland, Columbia, Peru....It is common for them to feel lonely and homesick at this time of year. 

Here are a few songs that focus on some of the deep emotions that being away from our loved ones bring out in us.  

Home 
This is a new version of Home sung by Blake Shelton and Michael Buble that focuses specifically on how much would like to be home for Christmas. The original song by Michael  Buble shows the same emotion, but stresses how hard it is to be away from people you love at any time.  This is an easy song to sing along to because it is clear and slow and full of emotion. Try to sing along with it as many times as you can, and put as much emotion into your voice as possible when you sing it. It will definitely help your pronunciation.





Song for a Winter's Night 
This song written by Canadian singer songwriter Gordon Lightfoot is not really a Christmas song, but it has become popular at Christmas because makes people think of all the people at Christmas. It is one of my personal favourites all year long.




I'll Be Home For Christmas 
Even a beginner can sing this song which communicates the feelings of anyone who wants to be home for the holidays. If you can't be home in reality, you can go home in your dreams. What a lovely idea. This is a slow song that doesn't have many difficult words. Enjoy! 




MORE TO COME 
 
Come back tomorrow for more Christmas songs, vocabulary, videos, readings, games and other activities. 

Share the love ! 
 
If you enjoyed this post, invite your friends and family to join in the fun, or post this to Facebook or any other social site you belong to   


What are some of YOUR favourite Christmas songs that you would like to see here? Why do you like them?  

Leave a comment and I will try to post them.  



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