Happiness and ELT: Principles and Activities

The agony of choice: The teacher’s dilemma: should I do something ‘fun’ or something ‘useful’? The idea behind this talk is that we can use activities that will both help our students with their English AND make them Happier too. [NB: This is not about using enjoyable tasks, but ones that will actually make students seriously happier].

Key findings: The talk will outline some findings from the fields of Positive Psychology / Evolutionary Psychology, such as the following:

•  We have evolved to be successful – not happy.
•  We feel happy when we do things for others.
•  We are happier when we focus on the positive aspects of the present.
•  We feel happy when we focus on our achievements.
•  We feel happy when our actions have a greater purpose.

Tasks: Four activities will also be included; these are tasks that can be done in class and which research has shown have a positive effect on people’s level of happiness. These are:

• ‘Random Acts of Kindness’: things do something for someone outside the class and report what they did.
• ‘The Gratitude Attitude’: students make a list of things they are grateful for and share it with a classmate.
• ‘Some Flowers for Me’: students imagine they have been given a bunch of flowers then answer the question ‘What have you ever done to deserve them?’.
• ‘Free Rice’: students play a few rounds of ‘Free Rice’ using their smartphone (this helps the World Food Programme).

The audience will be asked to engage in these tasks to experience them from the students’ point of view.

Beyond just language: The idea is to use language as the medium to promote happiness and bonding in class. Research has shown that happier learners are more successful learners.