Reading Faces - Multimodal Literacy Lessons

Reading Faces is an engaging and highly interactive ESL lesson that helps students explore the emotional depth of human communication through facial expressions.

Designed for B1+ learners, the lesson builds gestural literacy by focusing on how we read, interpret, and express emotions nonverbally. Through discussion, visual analysis, video modeling, and silent role plays, students become more emotionally aware and expressive communicators. These are skills that are vital for building empathy, improving social interaction, and enhancing spoken communication.

Strengths:

• Emotionally intelligent communication: Develops students’ ability to recognize and express a wide range of emotions, improving their ability to connect with others.
• Visual and embodied learning: Leverages multimodal input, images, facial mimicry, and gesture, to make abstract emotional concepts tangible and memorable.
• Fun, nonverbal interaction: Silent role plays and facial guessing games add variety, lower speaking anxiety, and foster inclusive participation.
• Reflective thinking: Encourages learners to consider the role of emotions in communication and how facial cues vary (or don’t) across cultures.
• Flexible classroom use: Suitable for in-person or online teaching, with digital materials and activities that work well in pairs, small groups, or whole-class settings.

Pedagogical Approach:

This lesson follows a task-based and communicative approach, moving students through observation, imitation, interaction, and reflection. Rooted in multimodal literacy and emotional intelligence development, Reading Faces offers a fresh and meaningful way to enhance learners’ speaking, listening, and interpersonal skills. By working with facial expressions in an active, embodied way, students build not just language proficiency but greater self-awareness and social fluency.