Have you ever communicated with your eyes? In this lesson, students will explore body language and nonverbal communication. The lesson features a video of a former FBI agent and body language expert discussing how his skills helped him catch a spy. Students will learn and practice speculative adverbs and related vocabulary. The lesson includes plenty of engaging discussion activities and worksheets developed for both adult and teenage learners, ensuring an interactive and insightful learning experience.

Lesson Objectives

Grammar: Students will delve into the use of speculative adverbs, enhancing their ability to express possibilities, likelihoods, and certainties. They will practice these expressions in various scenarios, learning to communicate more nuanced thoughts about potential or hypothetical situations.

Listening: Students will improve their listening skills through engagement with a video featuring a former FBI agent discussing nonverbal communication. They will focus on comprehending detailed content about body language and its interpretations, enhancing their ability to listen actively and critically in English.

Speaking: The lesson encourages students to actively participate in discussions and role-play exercises that revolve around interpreting body language and making speculative statements. This will help them improve their spoken English fluency, particularly in expressing observations and forming hypotheses about others' behaviors and intentions.

Vocabulary: Vocabulary development will focus on words and phrases associated with body language and speculation, such as "likely," "probably," and "definitely." These terms are essential for discussing nonverbal cues and the degrees of certainty in various contexts.

Cultural Awareness: Students will explore the cultural implications of body language, discussing how nonverbal communication can vary across different cultures and the misconceptions that often arise from these differences. This part of the lesson aims to broaden students' understanding of nonverbal communication in a global context.

Homework: Learners will complete exercises that test their understanding of body language cues and speculative language. They will choose appropriate words to complete sentences about body language, select the correct interpretations of described scenarios, and fill in blanks with speculative adverbs to assess the likelihood of different actions based on described situations.

Video

                                                If someone touches their nose or clears their throat, are they lying? Watch this video about a former FBI agent and body language expert, Joe Navarro, who talks about body language and explains how his expertise helped him to catch a spy. 
												
                                            

Video Transcript

Vocabulary and Pronunciation

nonverbals [noun]: gestures or facial expressions that nonverbally show how you feel about something

peephole [noun]: a small hole or opening in a wall or door through which you can see to the other side

sheer [adjective]: not mixed with anything else; pure

deception [noun]: the act of hiding the truth, especially if you want to get an advantage

tradecraft [noun]: the skills and methods used by someone doing a skilled job; the skills and techniques used by people whose jobs involve secret activities such as intelligence work and spying

neutralize [verb]: to stop something from having an effect or from working properly

sophisticated [adjective]: complex; not simple; made with great skill

soothe [verb]: to make someone less upset or angry; to cause someone or something to hurt less

stand out [phrasal verb]: to be more noticeable or easily seen

indicative [adjective]: being a sign or showing that something exists and is true

misconception [noun]: a wrong idea, mainly because it is based on a failure to understand a situation

empirically [adverb]: in a way that is based on what you experience or see rather than on theory

propel [verb]: to make something move forward or onward

lousy [adjective]: very bad

espionage [noun]: the practice of spying or using spies to obtain information about the plans and activities, especially of a foreign government or a competing company

hostile [adjective]: not friendly

stock [noun]: the stem of a plant or flower

mole [noun]: a person working within an organization, such as a government department, who secretly reports information about its enemy

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