The Drive to Succeed

The main goals of this ESL lesson plan are to:

• – explore the complex psychology of motivation through varied interactive exercises and discussion prompts;
• – practice reading comprehension skills, fill-in-the-blank activities, vocabulary building, and meaningful conversation abilities;
• – watch a video about how to get motivated when you don’t feel like it and analyze factors influencing drive and resilience.

This C1 reading practice lesson explores the complex psychology of motivation through varied interactive exercises, including discussion prompts on factors influencing drive and resilience, fill-in-the-blank activities, and reading comprehension.

Warm-up

The lesson kicks off with students discussing ideas related to motivation and personal drive.

Video

Students watch a video “How to get motivated even when you don’t feel like it.” After viewing, they discuss the main messages from the video using provided phrases.

Reading

Next, students dive into three short articles:

• “Motivation”
• “Motivation: The Driving Force Behind Our Actions”
• “How to Keep Working When You’re Just Not Feeling It”

Each article comes with its own follow-up tasks. These include exercises like identifying the main message using helpful phrases, filling in missing words or expressions in context, and answering comprehension questions that check their understanding of the reading. These tasks are designed to build vocabulary, boost reading skills, and spark meaningful conversations.

Discussion

To wrap up the lesson, students read a passage about setbacks in achieving goals and share their opinions about it.