
In this Upper-Intermediate speaking practice lesson, students develop their speaking skills while engaging in meaningful discussions about purpose, fulfillment, success, and what makes life worth living, using topic-specific vocabulary and complex argumentation techniques.
Warm-up
The lesson kicks off with a vocabulary expansion exercise.
Video
Students watch a video “Arthur Brooks explains how people can escape the ‘doom loop’ of social media.” After viewing, they discuss the main messages from the video using phrases provided.
Speaking
In the first exercise, students discuss a number of opposing views on the meaning of life. Next, they share their personal views on life’s meaning. In the following exercise, students choose a quote that resonates with them and explain why they chose it. Finally, they rank ten key values from 1 (most important for a meaningful life) to 10 (least important) and explain their top three choices.
Discussion
To wrap up the lesson, students look at photos of people and guess what their meaning of life is. Next they choose which one of them they would like to be and why.

Can We Afford to Go Green? Can We Afford Not To?
In this Intermediate speaking practice lesson students talk about whether going…

Let’s Talk About Selfies
This C2 reading practice lesson develops advanced comprehension skills…

The Psychology of Gambling
This Upper-Intermediate ESL lesson plan on the psychology of gambling engages…
