Intellectual Humility

Lesson Summary:
This complete ESL video lesson plan is built around the short video Why Intellectual Humility Matters and explores the themes of humility, intellectual humility, and personal growth. Designed for Intermediate (B1) to Upper Intermediate (B2) learners, it includes engaging activities that build vocabulary related to belief and scientific reasoning, develop listening, viewing, and reading skills, and encourage creative writing, reflection, and roleplay. It’s ideal for teachers seeking a ready-to-use, thought-provoking lesson that promotes open-mindedness and critical thinking.

Learning Objectives:
• To introduce students to the themes of humility and intellectual humility
• To expand vocabulary related to humility, belief and scientific reasoning
• To develop students’ viewing, listening, and reading comprehension skills
• To improve students’ writing through creative and reflective tasks using new vocabulary
• To improve students’ speaking through roleplay and discussion using new vocabulary
• To develop visual representing skills through multimodal composition homework tasks
• To practise critical thinking through discussion and reflection

Lesson Activities:
• Discussion on humility and intellectual humility
• Vocabulary-building tasks on belief and reasoning
• Viewing, prediction and comprehension activities based on a short video
• Analysis and reflection on key ideas from the video
• Roleplay activity exploring open-minded dialogue
• Reading and discussion of Bit by Bit: A Practical Guide to Refining Your Beliefs
• Comprehension and critical thinking exercises
• Creative and multimodal homework tasks

Learner Type:
Intermediate (B1) – Upper Intermediate (B2); teens and adults

Language Focus:
• Vocabulary related to humility and belief
• Expressions for giving opinions and showing uncertainty
• Phrases for respectful disagreement and reflection

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
• 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.