The Art of Visual Storytelling

The main goals of this ESL lesson plan are to:

• – teach students about visual storytelling techniques, filmmaking approaches, and technical vocabulary;
• – practice language skills through gap-fill conversations, word formation exercises, and reading comprehension;
• – watch an informative video about how the BBC makes Planet Earth look like a Hollywood movie.

This C1-level lesson plan uses varied exercise formats to teach students about visual storytelling techniques, from identifying filmmaking approaches to understanding technical vocabulary and industry practices. 

Warm-up 

Students read statements and decide which visual storytelling approach they describe.

Video 

Students watch an informative video titled “How the BBC makes Planet Earth look like a Hollywood movie.” 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 fill gaps in a conversation with the provided phrases/words. In the second exercise, they rearrange letters to create words. Lastly, they find phrases in a text that correspond to a list of given definitions.

Reading 

Students read a text about visual storytelling and answer questions about the text to test their reading comprehension.

Discussion 

For each pair of visual storytelling characteristics, students choose the one that plays a bigger role in connecting emotionally with the audience.