
C1 ESL Video Lesson Plan: Emotionally Intelligent People
🎯 Level – Advanced (C1) – Proficient (C2)
💡 Theme – Emotional intelligence and emotionally intelligent people
🧠 Learning Objectives
• To understand emotional intelligence and its importance
• To develop vocabulary related to emotions, leadership and behaviour
• To improve communication and critical thinking skills
🎬 Lesson Activities
• Discuss and analyse a quotation on emotional intelligence
• Watch and analyse a short video
• Roleplay and reflect on emotional intelligence in real-life contexts
📚 Language Focus
• Emotions
• Leadership
• Behaviour
Lesson Summary:
This Advanced (C1)–Proficient (C2) ESL lesson plan is built around a thought-provoking video that explores the theme of emotional intelligence and the characteristics of emotionally intelligent people. It is designed to help learners develop key language skills—listening, viewing, speaking, reading, writing and visually representing—through guided discussion, roleplay, vocabulary building, and engaging classroom activities.
Learning Objectives:
• To introduce students to the concept of emotional intelligence
• To introduce students to the characteristics of emotionally intelligent people
• To expand students’ vocabulary related to emotions, leadership and behaviour
• To develop students’ viewing, listening and reading comprehension skills
• To develop students’ writing skills through creative tasks and use of new vocabulary
• To improve students’ speaking skills through roleplay and discussions
• To improve students’ visual representing skills through multimodal composition homework tasks
Lesson Activities:
• Explore and discuss quotations on emotional intelligence
• Predict and watch a short video
• Answer comprehension questions and analyse key ideas
• Participate in critical thinking discussions
• Perform a communicative roleplay
• Read and discuss an article on emotional intelligence
• Reflect through writing and discussion
Learner Type:
Advanced (C1) – Proficient (C2), mature teens and adults
Language Focus:
• Vocabulary related to emotions
• Vocabulary related to leadership
• Vocabulary related to behaviour
Benefits for Teachers:
- Save hours of preparation with a fully developed, flexible lesson plan
- Engage students through compelling stories and real-world themes such as emotional intelligence, character, values, empathy, personal development, identity, relationships, global issues and social issues
- Build classroom routines that integrate multimodal literacy naturally and progressively
- Foster more inclusive and differentiated learning by using varied modes of input
- Promote social-emotional learning (SEL)
- Rely on a trusted methodology backed by educational research and grounded in the theories of Vygotsky, Kress, Mayer and Krashen
Benefits for Learners:
- Develop communicative competence and confidence through integrated skill-building
- Expand vocabulary and improve listening and reading comprehension through repeated, meaningful exposure
- Think critically and creatively while exploring powerful social and emotional themes
- Strengthen emotional intelligence and intercultural awareness through affective engagement with multimodal texts
Watch the short video.
Check out the lesson plan
Remember that Individual Membership and Institutional Membership of Film English Club allow unlimited access to all 800+ Film English Club Video Lesson Plans, Extensive Viewing Guides and Film Study Worksheets.
Upgrade to Film English Club
We hope you enjoy this ESL video lesson plan.
Thanks for being part of the Film English community, and happy teaching!
— The Film English Team

Get Started with Free Lessons
Transform Your English Classroom with the Multimodal Approach
This ESL video lesson plan is built around a thought-provoking short video and designed using the innovative Multimodal Approach, integrating listening, speaking, reading, writing, viewing, and representing. Engage learners with real-world themes, develop communicative competence, build vocabulary and foster critical thinking through dynamic, research-informed activities. Find out more about the Multimodal Approach and join thousands of teachers transforming their classrooms with Film English.

