The importance of good posture
Lesson plan overview
In this intermediate and upper-intermediate ESL lesson plan for adults and teens, students will learn less common parts of the body, poor and proper body posture, practise their listening skills and speak about their posture, their good and bad habits. They will also share their ideas on how to improve. It could be used with business English students as well as it tackles the topic of posture in the workplace. You can combine this lesson with “Communication styles: Assertive vs aggressive“.
Vocabulary: After an initial discussion on modern lifestyle and how it has influenced our posture, students complete an activity and learn parts of the body (e.g. ankle, wrist, hip, joints). Next, they do a matching activity and talk about poor posture (e.g. slouching, hunched back, slumped shoulders) In a multiple-choice pre-listening vocabulary exercise, students learn more topic-related vocabulary such as impair, wear and tear, muscle strain.
In a pre-listening discussion, they practice all the newly-learned vocabulary and try to predict the information they are going to hear in the video. A few photos are provided to guide the conversation.
Listening: Students watch a TED talk video “The benefits of good posture” and complete 3 different activities for the 3 different parts of the video .First they do a gap fill exercise with the words that they hear, then they complete extracts from the video and listen to check their answers and lastly, they put the tips given in the video in order.
Speaking: There are 2 speaking activities to wrap up this lesson. In the first activity students work in groups and come up with ideas about different measures that could be implemented in their workplace to ensure good posture.The last speaking activity opens a broader discussion about posture, body language and what it projects to the audience.The lesson provides various opportunities for discussion and vocabulary practice on a topic everyone can relate to.
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.”
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
Conversation cards PDF
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.
Teacher’s lesson plan
Student’s worksheet
Student’s interactive PDF
Conversation cards PDF
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