LESSON OVERVIEW

This stress management lesson plan is based on a very short video explaining the sources of work-related stress, its impact on our health and the ways to handle it. Apart from learning words collocating with the word stress, students will also have a lot of discussion opportunities and learn how to cope with workplace stress.

VOCABULARY

To kick off, your students need to complete a mind map which focuses on the word stress. They have to come up with ideas of words which can go with stress. There are just first letters of some words to make it easier to guess. Monitor your students’ work and help them with some clues, if necessary.

PRE-WATCHING DISCUSSION

The stress management lesson plan couldn’t go without a discussion about stressful situations your students might face at work. Therefore, we prepared a list of common situations and your students have to rank them from 1 to 10 (from the least stressful to most stressful ones). Additionally, when they finish, discuss their ranking and elicit from them some additional info about these situations or ask follow-up questions.

VIDEO – LISTENING COMPREHENSION

Next, before watching the video, students have to match halves of some phrases which then appear in the video. The idea behind this task is to prepare students for watching the video and to facilitate the whole process. Then, to check their answers, students have to watch the video for the first time. After that, they have to watch it again (up to 3:20) and answer some listening comprehension questions.

DISCUSSION – STRESS MANAGEMENT

Moreover, there is one more task connected with the video. The speakers presents three possible reactions to stressful situations: remove, change and accept. In this final task, students have to look at one stressful situation from the video (about salary) and possible solutions in the remove / change / accept framework. Then, they need to do a similar thing with other stressful situations provided. They have to complete the table for other situations, compare and discuss their answers in pairs. Alternatively, you can ask them to write down 3-4 things that cause stress for them to make this task more personal. This way you can actually use our stress management lesson plan to let your students discover a technique for handling stress.