Experiencing GratitudePERMA
  • Experiencing Gratitude - Intermediate High

    • Experiencing Gratitude - Intermediate High

    Positive Psychology Learning Outcomes: Students will be able to recognize positive feelings through answering questions about the video and experience and express positive feelings through talking about gratitude. Language Learning Outcomes: Students will be able to make inferences, predict what information will follow, connect content to background knowledge, narrate/describe in all major time frames about familiar and general topics, and use organizational patterns when speaking.

    Lesson Information

    Positive Psychology Learning Outcomes

    Students will...

    1. recognize positive feelings through answering questions about the video.
    2. experience and express positive feelings through talking about gratitude

    Language Learning Outcomes

    Students will...

    1. make inferences.
    2. predict what information will follow.
    3. connect content to background knowledge.
    4. narrate/describe in all major time frames about familiar and general topics.
    5. use organizational patterns when speaking.

    Materials Needed

    Overview

    Explain to students that we will be talking about gratitude, watching a video, learning vocabulary, and sharing an experience about gratitude.

    Activate Background Information

    Ask the students:

    • What is gratitude? 
    • When do you experience gratitude?
    • What does gratitude mean to you? 
    • What are some ways to express gratitude?

    Inferences and Predictions. What are they? What do we need in order to make predictions?

    • Based on prior knowledge and experience.
    • Based on the information we already have.

    Activity 1: Listening/Speaking

    Watch the following video as a class, stopping it a few times to ask the students: 

    • What do you think will happen next?

    Practice making predictions. 

    Bear Does Laundry - Samsung Washing Machine Commercial (funny)

    https://youtu.be/993ForRDhwI

    Activity 2: Listening/Speaking

    Have students watch this video for the following activity: 

    

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XA0bB79oGc

    Pre-Listening

    •  Discuss the title of the video “The Present.” 
      • What do you think the video will be about?
      • What do you think the speaker will talk about?

    During Listening 

    • Practice inferences and predictions with the video the same way you did in the section above.

    Post-Listening

    • What happened in the video? 
    • What were some things that surprised you? Why? 
    • How did you feel about the video? 

    • Discuss with a partner and then as a class.

    Activity 3: Listening/Speaking

    Past tense: Give a brief review on how to conjugate verbs in the past tense by playing a matching game. 

    • Patterns/Chunks/Phrases:
      • I am/was pleased that
      • I am/was happy that
      • I am/was delighted that
      • I feel/felt fortunate that
      • I feel/felt satisfied because
      • I feel/felt relieved because
      • I feel/felt lucky that
    • Ask the question again: 
      • How did you feel about the video? 
    • Have students answer using the above phrases/chunks. 

    Activity 4: Speaking

    Have students share a personal experience with a partner about gratitude in the past. Remember to use past tense and some of the above phrases.

    • Teacher models sharing an experience first.
      • Describe what happened.
        • How did you feel?
        • How did the other person feel?
    • Have one or two students share with the class.
    • Have students share with a partner three things they found interesting in our lesson today.

    Homework

    Write down or share with someone three things you are grateful for today.

    Follow-up

    Tuesday:

    Write a thank-you note to the anonymous donor that gave each student $200. Explain what a thank-you note looks like and take some time for the students to write their notes. Please bring those to the office before Wednesday at 3pm. They will be bound in a book, so doing this on normal paper would work great.

    Wednesday:

    Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin said, "Gratitude is a mark of a noble soul an a refined character. We like to be around those who are grateful. They tend to brighten all around them. They make others feel better about themselves. They tend to be more humble, more joyful, more likable." (retrieved from https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/joseph-b-wirthlin/live-thanksgiving-daily/)

    Read this quote as a class and think of a person in your life that is an example of that. Share with a partner. It can be a story or a description of the person or how you feel when you are around that person and why (Teacher models first). 

    Thursday:

    Read the following proverb with the class.

    "Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it."

    • Do you agree or disagree? Talk with a partner.
    • What should we do if we get a gift that we don't like?

    This content is provided to you freely by Ensign College.

    Access it online or download it at https://ensign.edtechbooks.org/PositivePsychologyintheClassroom/expressing_gratitude_intermediate_high.