Meditation and the brain
Lesson plan overview
This ESl lesson plan is dedicated to the topic of meditation and relaxation. Students learn relevant vocabulary to talk about the way they like to relax and synonyms of the word relax. They watch a short video and practise the new vocabulary with various communicative activities. You can combine it with the following lessons “Cold exposure and resilience: The Wim Hof method“, “Beyond the senses: exploring floatation tanks“, “Health myths“, “Phrasal verbs: rest and relaxation“, “Phrasal verbs: health“, “Idioms: burnout“, ““Idioms: attention and concentration“.
Vocabulary: After an initial discussion, students learn vocabulary to talk about common ways of relaxing (take a stroll, cuddle, pamper yourself). Then they work on different ways to talk about relaxation (unwind, de-stress, take it easy, chill out). After completing the 2 activities students use their newly-learned vocabulary to talk about the ways they relax.
Listening: Students complete a multiple-choice pre-listening activity with words and expressions from the video and then watch the video “Hack your brain’s default mode with meditation”. In the first activity, students complete the benefits of meditating with the verbs given. Then they watch the video until the end and answer the questions given in their own words. There is an extension activity about prepositions (obsess about, think about, depend on, focus on).
The worksheet concludes with a role-play activity – students take the roles of a person who is keen on meditating and a person who is very stressed out, but sceptical about trying meditation.
Homework: 3 research topics are suggested which aim to develop the topic further. The topics, combined with the additional resources provided on theenglishflows.com provide plenty of extra opportunities for contact with topic-related vocabulary in order to reinforce and enrich it
Unlock these resources with one of our subscription plans
Teacher’s lesson plan
Student’s worksheet
Student’s interactive PDF
Conversation cards PDF
Pre-class activities
All video-based ESL lesson plans include online pre-class activities, which are FREE and can be completed without registration. Perfect for teachers who wish to embrace the blended learning approach. By providing students with resources and engagement opportunities before the actual class session, educators can foster active participation, enhance comprehension, and optimise in-class discussions.
The pre-class activities are optional: if you choose not to assign them, or your students don’t complete them, it will not disturb the flow of the class. You can find and review the pre-class activities for this lesson plan here:
To send the pre-class activities to your students, copy the link below.
In-class activities
Additional resources
Each video-based lesson plan includes links to additional resources (videos and articles), which are FREE can be found online (in the pre-class activities page. These links aim to extend the learning experience, enabling students to connect classroom knowledge with real-world applications.
Unlock these resources with one of our subscription plans
Teacher’s lesson plan
Student’s worksheet
Student’s interactive PDF
Conversation cards PDF
Not sure yet?
Try one of our FREE lessons plans
Share this lesson plan with someone who will find it useful