LESSON OVERVIEW
In this ESL lesson about happiness, students talk about the feeling, watch a video and discuss happiness myths. The teacher can also choose to do an optional vocabulary activity with students.
This is a Speaking Class worksheet. It includes a variety of tasks that let your students practise their speaking skills. This lesson format does not focus on grammar or vocabulary. Learn more about it here.
WARM-UP & VIDEO
At the beginning of this ESL lesson about happiness, students look at three definitions of the word happiness and say why they think the definitions are so different. Then, students look at a list of nouns (e.g. bliss, contentment, wonder, euphoria) and choose four which they think give the best idea of what happiness is. Students also need to explain what the connection between the words and happiness is. The teacher can also choose to ask students to create adjectives from the nouns and/or think of verbs that collocate with the nouns. Before watching the video, students think of the things that are or were thought to bring happiness by various generations (e.g. your grandparents’ generation). Then, they watch the video and summarise their opinions about it in one sentence.
SPEAKING
In the second part of this ESL lesson about happiness, students say whether they agree that the ideas from the video are myths. They need to explain their opinions. Then, students look at some quotes from the video and discuss some questions. For example, they talk about checklists with life goals, how certain narratives can be motivating or demotivating or how we can be less judgemental about people who choose different life paths than us. In the final part of this ESL lesson about happiness, students say whether they agree with some statements about happiness. For instance, they talk about happiness being a journey, not a path, and happiness being a universal human pursuit. The statements are also a comment on sadness, self-acceptance and chasing happiness. In the task, students need to explain their answers.