Don’t try to convince others

The main goals of this ESL lesson plan are to:

• – focus on effective communication strategies in business settings and explore why constant attempts to convince others can be counterproductive;
• – practice advanced language skills through gap-fill exercises, dialogue creation, reading comprehension, and sentence transformation activities;
• – watch a video about how to create change and develop professional communication abilities through mentor-mentee dialogue practice.

This C2-level lesson focuses on effective communication strategies in business settings, specifically exploring why constant attempts to convince others can be counterproductive.

Warm-up 

Students discuss whether they agree or disagree with certain opinions and explain why.

Video 

Students watch an informative video titled “How to Create Change.” After viewing, they complete a matching exercise, connecting sentence beginnings with appropriate endings based on the video content.

Exercises 

Language skills are reinforced through various activities. Students complete the gaps in sentences with correct words. In the second exercise, they complete sentences so that they have a similar meaning to the original sentences.

Writing

Together with the teacher, students create two dialogues between a mentor and a mentee discussing the topic of convincing others in professional situations.

Reading 

Students read a text about why convincing others doesn’t always work and answer questions about the text to test reading comprehension.

Discussion 

Students rearrange the words to form questions, then answer them.