The following text and activities are taken and adapted from Seasons and Celebrations, Stage 2 Factfiles from the Oxford Bookworms Library, suitable for younger learners.
Activities Before Reading
1. This text below is about St. Valentine’s Day. Which of these things do you think you are going to read about? Circle four words.
| Love | Money |
| Flowers | Buildings |
| Horses | Cards |
| Festivals | Storms |
Answers: Love, Flowers, Cards, Festivals
2. How much do you know about St. Valentine’s Day. Are these sentences true (T) or false (F)?
a) St. Valentine’s Day started in the nineteenth century.
b) On Valentine’s Day people send cards to the people they love.
c) St. Valentine’s Day is 15 February.
d) Chocolates are a kind of food.
e) People often go out to dinner in restaurants in the evening.
f) St. Valentine’s Day is named after a famous Roman emperor.
Answers: a) F, b) T, c) F, d) T, e) T, f) F
Activities While Reading
Read the text below. While reading, answer the following questions.
1. Match the beginnings and endings of the sentences
1. Valentine’s Day started more than…
2. Saint Valentine was a Christian who…
3. Valentine was sent to prison because…
4. When Valentine was in prison, he…
5. People started sending Valentine’s cards…
a) he helped a soldier to marry.
b) in the early nineteenth century.
c) two thousand years ago.
d) lived in Rome.
e) fell in love.
Answers: 1. c), 2. d), 3. a), 4. e), 5. b)
2. Choose the best question word for these questions, and then answer them.
What / When / Who / How / Why
1. _____ was Saint Valentine?
2. _____ is St. Valentine’s Day?
3. _____ do people send to the people they love?
4. _____ long have people celebrated Valentine’s Day?
5. _____ do people write ‘Be my Valentine’ at the end of the cards?
6. _____ was the Emperor of Rome when Valentine was alive?
Answers: 1. Who, 2. When, 3. What, 4. How, 5. Why, 6. Who
14 February is St. Valentine’s Day. This started more than two thousand years ago, as a winter festival, on 15 February. On that day, people asked their gods to give them good fruit and vegetables, and strong animals.
When the Christians came to Britain, they came with a story about a man called Saint Valentine. The story is that Valentine was a Christian who lived in Rome in the third century. The Roman Emperor at the time, Claudius the Second, was not a Christian. Claudius thought that married soldiers did not make good soldiers, so he told his soldiers that they must not marry.