ESL lesson plan | C1 | Social media and the landscape of desire

Summary

This ESL lesson for C1 English students delves into the complex relationship between social media and human desire. This advanced English class material uses a thought-provoking video to explore "mimetic desire"—how we adopt others' desires—and its impact on our mental and emotional well-being.

Students will engage in discussions, vocabulary building, and grammar practice focused on noun clauses, all designed to foster critical thinking about the pervasive influence of digital platforms. The lesson aims to equip students with the language to articulate abstract concepts and navigate the social media landscape with greater awareness.

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Activities

A warm-up discussion exploring students' experiences with social media and self-comparison.
Video comprehension questions with fill-in-the-blanks based on an expert's insights into "mimetic desire" and its two types: external and internal mediators.
A vocabulary matching exercise to solidify understanding of key terms from the video, such as "mimetic," "contend with," "come to grips with," "mediator," and "transcendence."
A grammar exercise focusing on noun clauses, with multiple-choice questions to reinforce their correct usage as subjects, objects, or complements.
Vocabulary in context practice, applying newly learned terms to complete sentences.
Grammar practice involving rewriting sentences to form noun clauses, enhancing students' ability to construct complex sentences.
Speaking practice through reflective discussion questions, encouraging students to apply lesson concepts, vocabulary, and grammar to their own perspectives on desire and social media.

00:00:1,310 - We all exist in this world where we can tweet at somebody

00:00:5,023 or engage with somebody,

00:00:7,120 could even be the President of the United States.

00:00:9,480 And they might react to us back.

00:00:12,935 Social media has thrust us all onto the head of a pin,

00:00:16,270 socially speaking, existentially speaking.

00:00:19,333 Even if they're on the other side of the planet,

00:00:22,380 even if they have a lot more money than we do,

00:00:24,690 we can still interact with them.

00:00:27,070 We can still compete with them on engagement.

00:00:30,470 They're inside of our world.

00:00:32,280 We have a mimetic machine in our pocket

00:00:34,342 where all of these people exist.

00:00:43,680 So, what is mimetic desire?

00:00:46,410 Mimetic desire means that we're adopting

00:00:48,470 another person's desire as our own,

00:00:51,260 usually without even realizing that we're doing it.

00:00:55,090 So, social media has given us millions of mimetic models

00:00:59,690 that we now have to contend with.

00:01:2,360 Some people have went from having 10 mimetic models

00:01:4,830 to now having a million,

00:01:6,640 and we haven't quite come to grips as a culture

00:01:10,150 with what that means for our mental and emotional health.

00:01:16,100 There are two kinds of mimetic models.

00:01:19,340 The first kind is called an external mediator of desire.

00:01:24,360 These are models that are outside of our world;

00:01:27,370 whether because they exist in a different social sphere

00:01:30,710 there's no possibility of us coming into contact with them

00:01:34,470 and certainly not becoming rivals with them.

00:01:37,850 They're in some sense, outside of our world of desire,

00:01:41,390 outside of our world of competition.

00:01:43,950 Now, these external models of desire

00:01:46,300 can be real, or they can be fictional.

00:01:50,530 The other kind of model is inside of our world

00:01:54,230 called internal mediators of desire.

00:01:57,320 These are people that we do come into contact with,

00:02:0,214 and there is a possibility of conflict

00:02:3,730 or rivalry with these people.

00:02:6,630 These are people that are in our family;

00:02:8,276 these are people in our workplace;

00:02:10,540 these are people that could even be our friends.

00:02:13,740 It's easier to compare ourselves to them.

00:02:16,780 These are the kinds of people that we look to as benchmarks,

00:02:20,470 and we're far more likely to be envious

00:02:23,910 of somebody that we went to high school with

00:02:25,900 who now has a great job and a beautiful spouse,

00:02:29,570 than we are to be envious

00:02:31,680 of the richest person in the world.

00:02:35,440 The danger with external mediators of desire,

00:02:39,070 with keeping up with people that are very successful,

00:02:42,491 with people that have modeled a certain kind of lifestyle,

00:02:45,790 is that there's no end to that process.

00:02:50,050 All desire is a form of transcendence.

00:02:54,330 We desire to go beyond the boundaries,

00:02:56,720 to go just over the mountain,

00:02:58,700 to be the kind of person

00:03:1,010 that we don't feel that we currently are.

00:03:4,330 Having positive models of desire to emulate

00:03:7,480 is a very good thing.

00:03:8,530 It's important to have people that model virtues

00:03:12,370 and goodness that we would like,

00:03:15,990 but we have to understand the limitations of any model.

00:03:19,211 And understanding how the dynamic

00:03:21,950 between us and our models changes in that scenario

00:03:25,400 is really, really important.

00:03:27,170 It's also important to understand

00:03:28,510 when somebody is an internal model of desire to us

00:03:32,300 because, in that case, we have to have boundaries.

00:03:36,950 All desire comes from us feeling like we lack something,

00:03:41,860 and that can bring us into a dangerous, vicious cycle

00:03:46,010 because there will always be another model to find.

00:03:50,460 We have to choose our models wisely.

00:03:52,520 We also have to know when the model

00:03:55,560 is inflaming us with the desire

00:03:57,460 for something that's gonna bring real fulfillment

00:04:0,370 or whether it's going to bring a dopamine hit

00:04:3,700 or allow us to fantasize about a life

00:04:6,750 that we'll probably never have.

00:04:8,950 And even if we did have,

00:04:10,090 it would probably make us miserable.

00:04:12,980 All you need to do is go on Instagram

00:04:14,620 and spend five minutes,

00:04:15,720 and you see lifestyles modeled,

00:04:18,126 you see vacation destinations modeled, fashions,

00:04:22,000 manners of speech, ways of engagement,

00:04:24,720 ways of speaking, political preferences.

00:04:27,790 All of these desires are modeled for us 24 hours a day,

00:04:31,620 billions of them, and we need to understand

00:04:35,067 the mimetic landscape of social media

00:04:38,330 or else we'll become totally controlled by it.

00:04:41,580 - Get smarter, faster

00:04:43,040 with videos from the world's biggest thinkers.

00:04:45,490 And to learn even more from the world's biggest thinkers,

00:04:48,130 get Big Think+ for your business.

Vocabulary focus

The vocabulary section introduces advanced terms essential for discussing psychology and social phenomena. Key terms include "mimetic," "contend with," "come to grips with," "mediator," "social sphere," "rivals," "transcendence," "emulate," and "fulfillment." Students will learn to use these words to articulate complex ideas about desire, social influence, and personal well-being.

Grammar focus

This lesson concentrates on noun clauses, which function as nouns within a sentence. Students will learn how these clauses, often introduced by words like that, what, when, where, why, how, who, whom, whose, which, whether, or if, can act as the subject of a sentence, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition. The exercises will reinforce their understanding and application in discussing abstract concepts related to desire and social media.