I am so thrilled to be sharing this exciting and useful lesson plan with you. This blog post is about how to teach facial expressions using a free lesson plan provided by Off2Class.

When to teach this lesson on facial expressions

This is a speaking lesson plan that is great to use to introduce facial expressions. Facial expressions are important to study as they provide non-verbal cues and information. They can provide nearly as much information as spoken words do. They can be difficult to understand but when understood students can remain confident when interacting with others in English. This is a great lesson to introduce to upper-intermediate students that have been looking to develop a deeper understanding of English vocabulary in conversational contexts. 

You can download the lesson plan here:

What will students learn in this lesson? 

This is a speaking lesson though it contains new vocabulary words. There is no reading activity in this lesson but there are several questions prompts that introduce a variety of facial expressions. Students will learn about them and discuss why they are important as well as different ones people use. They will also learn about different facial expressions that are associated with different emotions and feelings. For example, when a person is happy, they smile. 

Throughout the lesson, students can reference images and words to help them retain information. In addition to this, they have the opportunity to learn to imitate facial expressions as they see fit. As a result, they will learn who we use facial expressions, what they mean as well as what involuntary actions are. 

How to teach this lesson

This is an incredibly fun lesson to teach, especially if you want to be more expressive than you are in usual lessons. In this lesson, you can use your vocal and facial expressions to amplify concepts or make the lesson engaging for students. Throughout the lesson be sure to use question prompts and to develop questions to ask that you see as fit to ask students. This lesson is a speaking one so it relies heavily on your ability to hold conversations with your students. Be sure to ask questions about your students and the pictures shown in the slides. In any case, you can download a free Off2Class account to access useful teacher notes. These notes provide prompts and guidance to teachers throughout the lesson. This is especially helpful for teachers new to teaching ESL. 

In any case, please let us know how teaching this lesson plan went for you. Off2Class loves to hear from teachers like you, so please feel free to leave a comment below. Also, you can access several free Off2Class downloads here. Happy teaching!