Feeling emotional

In this ESL lesson, students practice a range of vocabulary related to feelings and emotions, including common idioms featuring the words “laugh”, “cry” and “tears”. Relevant grammar structures are also included to improve cohesion. The lesson builds towards students using this language in a discussion with their teacher about their emotions.

Introduction

The lesson starts with a short conversation about feelings. This is followed by questions related to the feelings described in a dialogue.

Vocabulary: Feelings

New words to describe feelings are introduced through a matching exercise (apprehensive, scared stiff, devastated, etc.). The student then uses these words to complete a text and replaces the underlined phrases with the words of the same meaning.

Pick a card

The student picks a card with a situation or a person that evokes certain feelings, and then describes them to the teacher. In the second part of this exercise, the student picks a card with a hypothetical situation and discusses how they would feel in that situation.

Grammar: Revision of perfect tenses

The perfect tenses are briefly revised and the student explains the difference in meaning between pairs of sentences in different perfect tenses.

Idioms with laugh, cry, and tears

The student forms idioms by completing them with one of the three given words (burst into tears, cry one’s eyes out, it’s no laughing matter, etc.). After completing the idioms, the student learns their meanings by using them to complete sentences.

Video: Getting emotional in the workplace

After watching a video about emotions in the workplace, the student answers the video comprehension questions. Finally, they are presented with a hypothetical situation of showing emotions in the workplace and asked to explain how they would have handled the situation.