Developing resilience

Abi | May 22, 2026May 22, 2026

LESSON OVERVIEW

The main objectives of this ESL lesson on resilience are to:

• talk about resilience, cultural rituals and intentional hardship;
• practise key phrases for discussing resilience;
• watch a short video related to toughening practices.

In this lesson, students talk about different ideas on personal development, discuss resilience and watch a video on indigenous wisdom and modern psychology. They debate the concept of toughening, read and talk about cultural pain rituals and explore resilience-related phrases (e.g. prove yourself, develop resilience, push through). Students also share their opinions and experiences.

WARM-UP AND VIDEO

This ESL lesson on resilience starts with a warm-up. Students read quotes on contrasting ideas about productivity and effort. They say which one they can relate to more and why. Afterwards, students complete sentences with the words resilience and resilient. They then discuss what it means to be resilient. Moving on, students look at three practices used for toughening. They discuss what ‘toughening’ might mean and how it might relate to resilience. Then, students watch a video and check their answers. After that, they watch the video again and choose the right answers for questions about the purpose and benefits of intentional hardship. Next, students discuss the relevance and ethics of the toughening philosophy. 

USEFUL VOCABULARY AND DISCUSSION

In this part of this ESL lesson on resilience, students read sentences about cultural rituals involving physical hardship. They match phrases for discussing resilience (e.g. build strength, gain wisdom, cope with difficulties) with their definitions. Following that, students read about the rituals and practices from the previous task again. They express opinions, share experiences and give reasons. Afterwards, students use the vocabulary from the previous exercise to complete the gaps in comments about resilience and personal growth (e.g. You don’t need to suffer in order to prove yourself.). They then choose statements to agree or disagree with. Moving on, students look at different situations (e.g. travelling alone, failing a test, recovering from an injury) and discuss how they might help build resilience. They use the target phrases from the lesson. Finally, students examine pairs of experiences used to develop resilience. They choose and justify their preferred options.

HOMEWORK/REVISION

This ESL lesson on resilience also includes an additional task that you can use as homework or revision. In the task, students unscramble letters to create phrases in questions. They then choose four questions and answer them. The task is available in the teacher’s version of the worksheet. You can print it and hand it out to your students. It’s also included in the e-lesson plan.

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