How to Be Empathetic

Lesson Summary:
This ESL video lesson plan is built around a short, thought-provoking video titled STOP making it about YOU and explores empathy and how to be empathetic in personal and professional contexts. Designed for Upper Intermediate to Advanced adult learners, the lesson provides a complete, ready-to-use package that develops listening, viewing, speaking, reading, writing and critical thinking skills. Through discussion, quotation analysis, comprehension tasks, roleplay and an in-depth article reading, learners gain practical strategies for building trust, improving communication and developing meaningful relationships.

Learning Objectives:
• To introduce learners to empathy and its role in influence and relationships.
• To explore practical ways of being empathetic in personal and professional contexts.
• To expand vocabulary related to empathy, relationships and communication.
• To develop listening, viewing and reading comprehension skills.
• To improve speaking skills through discussion, reflection and roleplay.
• To develop creative, reflective and visual representing skills.

Lesson Activities:
• Warm-up discussion on empathy and influence.
• Vocabulary preparation related to empathy and communication.
• Quotation discussion and prediction tasks.
• Viewing and analysis of a short video.
• Comprehension and critical thinking questions.
• Roleplay practising empathetic communication.
• Reading and discussion of an article on empathy at work.
• Reflective writing and lesson review.

Learner Type:
Upper Intermediate (B2) – Advanced (C1) adult learners.

Language Focus:
• Empathy and emotional awareness vocabulary.
• Relationship and communication language.
• Workplace interaction and trust-building language.

Transform Your English Classroom with This Film English Multimodal Lesson

This ESL video lesson plan is built around a carefully selected short video and designed using the exclusive Multimodal Approach– an innovative methodology that integrates traditional language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) with viewing – the active process of analysing and interpreting multimodal texts – and representing – creating multimodal texts. This pedagogically rich approach mirrors how communication works in the real world, through a combination of language, image, sound, gesture and spatial design, making the lesson more engaging, relevant and effective.

This ESL video lesson plan plan consists of a complete, ready-to-use package that includes:

• A thought-provoking short video
• A detailed teacher’s guide with step-by-step instructions
• A pre-viewing vocabulary glossary to scaffold understanding
• Comprehension, discussion and critical thinking questions
• Creative post-viewing tasks such as roleplays, writing prompts and reflective activities
• A thematically linked reading text to reinforce language and deepen understanding
• A final task encouraging learners to create their own multimodal compositions (e.g. vlogs, posters, infographics or social media posts)

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
• Create authentic, personalised multimodal projects that reflect their own voice and ideas
• Strengthen emotional intelligence and intercultural awareness through affective engagement with multimodal texts

Whether you’re teaching in a secondary school, university or adult education context, Film English lesson plans offer a dynamic, research-informed pathway to meaningful language learning. Join thousands of teachers worldwide who are transforming their classrooms with the Multimodal Approach and helping their students learn English—and live through English—more fully.

Watch the short video.