Let’s learn how to talk about our feelings, emotions and moods in English.
Conversation Questions
1.) When are you happiest?
2.) How do you deal with stress?
3.) Do you ever get hangry (angry because you’re hungry)?
4.) What small things annoy you?
5.) What are you anxious for? (look forward to)
6.) What are you anxious about? (worried or concerned)
WARM UPS
BEGINNER +
Learn idioms about colour and feeling.
INTERMEDIATE +
Learn idioms to talk about emotions.
VOCABULARY
BEGINNER
Flashcards
Letter Soup
Drag and Drop Game
Multiple Choice
INTERMEDIATE
Verbs for Body Language
Expressions about gratitude
ADVANCED
Exaggeration for emphasis
GRAMMAR, READING, LISTENING
GRAMMAR
BEGINNER
Commonly confused words with -ed and -ing endlings – Bored, boring, scared, scary? Let’s sort it out.
READING AND LISTENING
INTERMEDIATE/ADVANCED
The Benefits of Expressing Your Emotions – A Business English article by Forbes Magazine
You Aren’t at the Mercy of Your Emotions – A 20 minute lecture on Ted
SPEAKING AND CONVERSATION
ALL LEVELS
Gratitude Game – Make full sentences about things you are grateful for.
One Minute Art! -Think of a specific emotion, and make a mandala that represents it. Other students try to guess the feeling.
HIGH BEGIINER/ADVANCED
Role Play
1.) Best friends- One discovers that the other has been gossiping maliciously about the other.
2.) You can’t fire me. I quit!- A boss and an employee strongly disagree.
3.) Partners- A couple work together to rebuild trust after it’s been broken.
Intermediate/ Advanced Conversation Topic
We often use the word make with emotions. You make me sad. That makes me angry.
Some therapists insist that their clients avoid using this expression, because it implies that we are not responsible for our own feelings.
Make is a causative verb. Someone else caused your feelings to happen to you.
Summarize in your own words. Why do some therapists discourage this way of talking about feelings?
1.) What do you think of this idea?
2.) Are we responsible for our feelings, or do others make us feel things?
3.) How important are your feeling, compared with the feelings of others?
VOCABULARY BOOSTER FOR ADVANCED STUDENTS
Start in the middle, with the most basic emotions. Then move outward, to the middle circle. Notice how each of these are a subset of a basic emotion. Refine your vocabulary further by checking out the outer circle.
Speaking and Conversation Emotion Wheel Activities
Let’s practice speaking and using emotions vocabulary by talking about our feelings.
Activity One
Clarify your emotions by exploring the wheel.
Think of a time that you felt one of the basic emotions. Incorporate the corresponding middle and outer vocabulary words, to speak more precisely about your experience.
Here’s an example:
I felt bad last week because I was stressed and tired. I was overwhelmed with work. I didn’t have the energy I needed, because I was sleepy. It all worked out okay in the end. I got through the week, and got all of my work done.
Activity Two
Use Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotion to refine your vocabulary and to think about what your emotions are telling you. Take turns selecting an emotion, reading the entry, and sharing your thoughts.
Further Reading
The Ultimate List of Emotions and How to Control your Emotions
6 Words that Describe Emotions that You’ve Felt but Never Knew Had a Name
