LESSON OVERVIEW

In this lesson, students watch a video about motivational speeches, practise collocations and discuss the idea of inspirational videos. 

WARM-UP & COLLOCATIONS

As a warm-up activity, students look at some sayings and decide which are the most inspiring or motivating for them. Then, they look at some words and match them to their synonyms (e.g. nonsense – gibberish, perfect – impeccable). They also look at some collocations and add two more words that can be used with each target word (articulate words/ideas/feelings, profound speaker/questions/understanding, etc.). After that, students practise collocations by completing two opinions. They also need to say what the opinions are about and which they agree with more. The opinions are about motivational videos. 

VIDEO & DISCUSSION

In the second part of the lesson, students watch the video. First they need to discuss some general questions about its content. Then, they watch the video for the second time and explain what some of the techniques mentioned in it are. After that, students talk about the video. The questions are about inspirational talks but also about other strategies for promoting personal growth and self-improvement. This activity also gives students an opportunity to practise collocations. In the final task, students need to decide whether some things make a speaker sound more profound or inspiring. The things include, for example, using a lot of complex terms, asking rhetorical questions. Students need to decide how important they are for a motivational speaker on a scale from 1 to 10. When discussing the techniques, students can think about different people: content creators, politicians, etc.

HOMEWORK/REVISION

This lesson plan also includes an additional vocabulary task to practise collocations. It’s available in the teacher’s version of the worksheet. You can print it, and hand it out to your students. It’s also included in the e-lesson plan if you teach online. There is also an optional homework task.