OVERVIEW & OBJECTIVES

This ESL lesson plan on luck offers engaging activities, PDF worksheets, and digital materials designed for advanced C1 students. In this lesson, students will:

• Share and reflect on personal beliefs and experiences related to luck, success, and fate.
• Explore and apply high-level vocabulary for traits, abstract ideas, and complex comparisons.
• Watch a video that examines the roles of superstition, psychology, and environment in shaping luck.
• Practice using formal discourse markers and opinion expressions to analyze cause, contrast, and degree.
• Engage in meaningful conversations and debates on favoritism, fate, and life trajectories.

PREVIEW & DISCUSSION

Students begin this ESL lesson on luck by reading and reacting to four quotes about success and luck from figures like Barack Obama and the Dalai Lama. They choose the quote(s) they find most interesting and discuss whether they agree. Then, they respond to questions exploring the balance between fate and personal agency, reflect on personal experiences with good or bad luck, and brainstorm traits and behaviors that may separate lucky people from unlucky ones. Students go on to match personality traits—such as resilience, superstition, and optimism—to four swimmers and evaluate who is most likely to succeed, prompting deeper analysis of how both character and circumstances affect outcomes. Finally, students discuss personal or well-known superstitions and rituals connected to luck, setting up the core theme of this luck ESL lesson plan.

VIEWING ACTIVITY

The video students watch explores whether luck is pure chance or something we can shape. It blends ancient superstitions with modern psychology and features research by British psychologist Richard Wiseman. The video argues that mindset, behavior, and life conditions all affect how luck plays out. First, students answer short-answer questions about common superstitions and Wiseman’s newspaper experiment. Then, they complete statements summarizing the four psychological principles of lucky people: openness to opportunity, optimism, intuition, and resilience. In the final task, students decide whether four statements from the video are true or false, including points about Obama's controversial remarks and economist Robert Frank’s take on inherited traits. If false, they must correct them—giving students both listening and critical thinking practice.

VIEWING FOLLOW-UP

After the video, students reflect in depth on the psychological traits of lucky people and whether they see those traits in themselves. They also examine the balance between luck, effort, privilege, and circumstance in their own successes. Then, they read a reaction to the video and match opinion expressions like as far as I’m concerned and up to a point to their functions: expressing degree, contrast, opinion, and reason. They write synonyms for each phrase and are encouraged to reuse them in the final discussion. Students then choose from a list of personal and reflective talking points—ranging from stories of bad luck to debates about personal merit—using the phrases from the chart. 

YOUR THOUGHTS ON FAVORITISM, FATE, & LIFE TRAJECTORIES

In this final activity, students choose from three rich, real-world-style case studies. In each, they examine how luck, privilege, and fate may have affected a person’s life: Bronny James and his entry into the NBA, a couple who met by chance after being stood up, and a man struggling with gambling after growing up in a wealthy household. Students discuss who is lucky or unlucky, who holds responsibility, and how people can interpret or overcome life’s turns. In their conversations, they are prompted to use expressions such as in light of the fact that or to a certain extent, supporting their ability to express complex ideas clearly. 

BENEFITS OF USING THIS LUCK ESL LESSON PLAN

This luck ESL lesson plan helps advanced students develop fluency in discussing abstract ideas and real-life situations. It builds vocabulary for cause-effect, contrast, and degree, which are essential for academic and professional communication. It includes a thought-provoking video and exercises that challenge students to reflect, analyze, and articulate nuanced perspectives. It offers structured opportunities to practice discussion language in meaningful, relatable contexts. It also supports deep conversation, critical thinking, and respectful debate—skills that are valuable in and beyond the ESL classroom.