ELT and the Science of Happiness

Positive psychology activities for ELT/EFL/ESL

Welcome to ELT & the Science of Happiness

This site is for ELT (English Language Teaching)/EFL/ESL teachers who want to incorporate positive psychology into their teaching. The main purpose is to share downloads of activities that teach/practice English and incorporate positive psychology.

"Positive Psychology" is a new movement in psychology. Traditional psychology focuses on mental illness. Positive psychology focuses on mental health -- what do happy people do?

Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky has identified 8 behaviors typical in happy, mentally healthy people. They are (in wording simplified to be accessible to EFL/ESL students):
    1. Remember good things in your life. (“Count your blessings")
    2. Do kind things.
    3. Say “thank you” to people who help you.
    4. Take time for your friends and family.
    5. Forgive people who hurt you.
    6. Take care of your health and your body.
    7. Notice good things as they happen.
    8. Learn to work with your problems and your stress.
These are good ideas to introduce positive psychology in the ELT classroom.

10 minutes for happiness The tasksheets in "10 minutes for happiness" are short warm-up/cool down" tasks. I wrote these for teachers who told me they wanted to use the ideas but were tied to a set curriculum. They can't devote a lot of class time -- but they can find 10 minutes at the beginning or end of class.
More happiness activities Lots more tasksheets here.
Posters, activities from other teachers, links and more

If you have happiness-related activities you would like me to post on this site, email them to me (PDF, please) at march@mgu.ac.jp

Thanks for visiting this site.
I think we're going to have fun with it!