Dreams ESL Lesson Plan

OBJECTIVE & OVERVIEW

This dreams ESL lesson plan contains PDF worksheets, activities, and digital materials for intermediate B1 - upper intermediate B2 students. By the end of the lesson, students will understand the benefits the benefits of dreaming, learn a variety of adjectives related to dreaming, and be able to use adjectives in a conversation when describing a dream to someobody.

PREVIEW & DISCUSSION

This ESL lesson plan on dreams starts with discussion questions about dreams. Next, students move on to discuss some ideas about dreaming its benefits by combining some adjectives and nouns. The last part of the preview section has students make some predictions about dreaming before watching the video, which is based on some images.

VIDEO & LISTENING COMPREHENSION

Students watch a video from TED about the surprising benefits of dreaming. In the video, a sleep scientist Matt Walker, says that we should think of dreams as a kind of overnight therapy. He talks about a few other related benefits of dreaming. In the viewing and listening activities, students write some missing words to complete Matt's ideas about dreaming benefits, as well as discuss how some images relate to these benefits. In the final part of the viewing section, students refer back to some of their ideas in the preview part of the lesson and compare their answers with the ideas Matt provided.

DISCUSSION & ADJECTIVES DESCRIBING DREAMS

After watching the video, students discuss some more questions related to dreams. Then, students complete some sentences using some of the adjectives in the video — such as "enhanced", "overnight", "traumatic" and "essential". This followed by an activity for students to learn some adjectives to describe dreams which are commonly used in English.

DREAM JOURNALING & INTERPRETATION

Students can do the final communicative part of in this lesson in three steps. In the first step, students take few minutes to do a short writing exercise in which they journal about a dream they've had. In the second step, students conduct a role-play activity in which they can describe this dream to a friend (their classmate/teacher), who helps them interpret the dream and what it may mean. Students swtich roles so that they each have a chance to describe their dreams and give help interpreting them.

In the final part of this exercise, students discuss some follow-up questions related to the task described above.

Benefits of using this dreams ESL lesson plan:

Critical Thinking: Interpreting dreams encourages critical thinking and analysis, as students need to consider the symbolism and meaning behind their dreams.

Descriptive Language: Students improve their ability to use a range of adjectives for painting a vivid and engaging picture of their dreams. This can help them also with storytelling skills and making them more captivating.

Creativity: The lesson plan encourages creativity in describing and interpreting dreams, which can lead to unique and imaginative discussions.