Learning That Feels Good: Integrating Well-Being and ELT
In this session, Andrea González reminds us that language learning doesn’t have to be stressful or rigid — it can be joyful, personal, and rooted in student well-being. Drawing on positive psychology and practical classroom tools (including a beautiful card game based on Chilean animals!), she shows us how to create emotionally safe, engaging, and meaningful English lessons where all students feel included — and ready to fly.
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First of all, welcome everybody. You see, to start, I'd like you to think or um I like you to ask you uh to take five seconds and to think about something that made you smile today. Five seconds to think about something that made you smile today. Got it? Let me see if I can open the chat and see your reactions. You can type it here. My students. My kitten and my cat. Right. My students too. Lots of teachers. Food. My kids. My son. My kitty. A song. You're right. Music. You see coffee. A
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baby. Love babies. I have a mother of four. My dog. A friend. Right. So there are many things you see that make me that make you feel happy. Right. So that spark of uh positivity is exactly what today is about. How we can bring well-being in to our English classrooms. You see, and when we think of learning, especially language learning, h many people imagine effort or something difficult or memorization and maybe even a stress that it doesn't have to be that way. See, and I'm going to show you how
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you can do it. My name is Andrea Gonzalez. I'm an English teacher from Chile as well said and let me show you. I cannot move this one. Today this representation is based in three uh different theories about positive psychology. So the first one says or talks about um the complex dynamic approach that tell us that all the learning processes are not liner. There are some movements in the process. H it's adaptive. It's messy sometimes and unique for every learning. CDA reminds us that the students don't all
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progress at the same pace and that facilations and setbacks are part of growth. This shifts our focus as teachers from covering content to designing flexible responsive lessons that honor each learner path. You see they are unique and they need their own learning path. Then I mentioned crash and monitor model and he tell us that um this process of learning requires emotional safety and a rich input. If the students feel anxious or judged or are safe or not welcome, their ability to acquire language is
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blocked. Emotional safety therefore is not optional. See, it's essential. And the perma selling perma that says that learning is sustained by well-being. When well-being is present, motivation and learning naturally flow. See, we don't need extra things. We don't need complex things. You just need motivation learning based on wellbeing. So, what if learning could feel good? What if you were a student and arrived to a classroom and you feel welcomed and you feel happy and you feel that you are
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there and you're considered you're not afraid saying no I don't like English I think I'm not going to do it today I really hope that the teacher doesn't ask me anything because I'm not ready what if learning feels good that is the question how can you do it how can you transform that So if learning is dynamic, needs emotional safety and is fueled by well-being. How do we do put this into practice with perma model? Perma model I'm going to tell you a little bit about that.
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Probably most of us know about it. But perma model is based on five different uh aspects. You see first of all a positive emotion. We need to provide positive emotions to the students. Uh we need engagement. We need relationships. We need meaning and accomplishment. So why uh when students feel joy, when they feel curious and there's humor in your classrooms, uh they it's not just an enjoyable lesson. you see they actually strengthen memory and support deeper learning. When a students experience um
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disengagement they lose track of time. They are not thinking about okay is the class going to start or we just have I don't know 10 more minutes and we're done. They are fully absorbed in meaningful tasks and that stretch their skills without overwhelming them. What about relationships? When when trust between teachers and peers creates an atmosphere and emotional of emotional safety, uh students feel free to take risk and use the language. See, they they are ready to they are ready to dare to speak. They
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are ready to there to be part of something very important is the meaning. Learning becomes more powerful when it connects, you see, with students lives, uh, cultures and identities. Giving English a personal and relevant purpose is the key of having a meaningful class and accomplishment. When you celebrate small wins, you build confidence and you build motivations. helping a students believe they can grow and succeed uh in their language journey is key is key for them. But all these theories that you as I said before you
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have probably seen before. Um I want you to I I want to bring them I don't know down to earth. You see with one classroom tool that it's called the wild chile car game. At first glance, uh, it's just a deck of cards, right? There you can see eight animals, chillion animals, but it's based on 16 chilling animals. However, this game is been carefully designed to embody CDA, crashing, and perma action. The game, as you can see, has six different type of cards. This is what makes it special. Students choose
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the activity type. That choice is not just a game mechanic. It's central, but really is central to well-being. When a students can decide how to participate, they feel safer and immediately more engaged. From a CDA perspective, this respect the uniqueness of each learner's path because some prefer reading others drawing other movements. See, there's no single right way forward. And I'm going to stop here for a while because sometimes we think that students have um skills that cannot be used in our
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language classroom or in our ELT classrooms. But that could be wrong because sometimes we say, well, you see, he likes drawing, but he can draw in my class. He can feel welcome. He can be part of my class, too. Why not? He loves acting. So probably he's not going to choose the the card read and draw because he likes acting and he's good at that. So that's something that we have to consider. Welcome all of your students. No one nor of your students have to be left behind. Then from questions view
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uh the choice is going to lower the effective filter. the students engage uh with input in the mode that feels safest and most meaningful to them whether as I said through listening through acting through reading so language acquisition can flow more naturally and through perma choice fosters well-being directly because choosing h is something far for them there you have a positive emotion when they are being absorbed in an activity they selected h it's because they are engag create when there be
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respect and they celebrate each other's choices. You see, they they nurture their relationship and when students connect their preferences with their learning, there's meaning success feels more authentic when they choose the path and there you have achievement. So in short, giving a students the power to choose transforms this activity seen as an obligation or activity from the class into an experience of joy, safety, and growth. And this is how it works. As you can see here, the first um type of card, it's
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called watch and say. So students are going to watch the card and just name the animal. And this is going to help them to strengthen uh vocabulary recall and they are going to able to express themsel you see clearly. You can also practice pronunciation. So these cards give you lots of possibilities you see. Then read and guess is the next one. They're going to read the description of the animal or someone is going to read the description for them and they are going to guess what the animal or which is the animal.
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For instance, I can read one and pink and stand on one leg. I live in legs in the north of Chile. If you know the name, can you type it please? Let's see if you can guess the animal. And pink right? That's right. That was easier. That was very easy. Right. Thank you. Well, I can see lots of people from Chile, too. Good. Chile and flamingos there. Yes. Good. Then read and draw. This is for the artists of your class. They're going to be happy to express themselves using colors, using pencils. So, they read the
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name of the animal. see lion and they draw it. Okay, that's idea. So, think about every skill h that you can see in your classrooms. You you just uh you don't need just linguistic skills. You probably have lots of skills that you have never seen or consider. Read and act. This is my favorite one. see read and act or listen and act because you if you like reading you can read a card and you can act it and this is something that they really love CPR as you teachers know h it's a success you see they really
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like making movements and um I don't know walking like a monkey and um imitate the movements of animals right and for example I have here called swim and sing like a blue whale. And the other options is listen and act because they can ask someone to read a card for them and they can act it. Then please tell me if if you have ever seen this animal. Type it in the chat box, please. Yes. Where where have you seen it? On TV. Right. In Chile and this mountains. Right in films. And a Bolivian zoo. Ecuador
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Colombia. Right. Discovery Channel. You're right. Well, this one is a picture of an Indian condor at a park. Really? Aipa Ka Canyon. Wow, that's fantastic. I'd love to see one. It's one of the biggest birds, right? Argentina. Yeah, I know. In forest documentaries. Well, I can see that you like nature, too. And these cars are based on nature, are based on animals. It's sad to see them in part. Yeah, you are right. It's so huge. It's enormous. And it's our national bird. And it's
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called condor, you see. And uh thinking about the condor, I remember that once uh we were playing this game card with some students and one of the students that that student that never that is never um I don't know or never feels comfortable see part of the class or is very shy uh agreed to play and said okay teacher I'm going to play this time and he took the card and the card said fly like an Indian contour. At first he hesitated. The room went silent. All the students were in silence. I mean waiting for his
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reaction. Is he going to do it or not? Because we have never heard him speak. Are we going to see him act like a condor? And slowly he stretch out his arms and start uh moving their arms the same as a condor flying around the classroom. And that was the moment when the classroom came alive and there were clapping hands and joyful laugher and voices were calling condor condor. So in that moment he he was he was a kind of there was a kind of transformation. He transformed himself because he said well I can be part of
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this. I can be part of the class. I'm not going to be sitting in the back of the classroom being afraid of speaking of speaking. Sorry. So he was no longer silent and he became at the heart of the classroom and he never he was never the same again. See he was always eager to participate. But with this short story what I want to tell you is that when learning feels good every student can open their wings and fly. It's not h it's not this is not a big idea. It's a very simple idea that
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you can implement easily in your own countries using your own animals using your own phone or flora thinking about I don't know things that connect your students with your reality books about nature they say. Yeah. So I think that the power is in your hands. This is not a big discovery but it's a big invitation for you to create classrooms where students can feel that learning is good that they can feel that uh learning can be positive. It doesn't have to be something hard or a strict
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you see. So feeling feeling good and being welcome is is something very very important and the power is in your hands. Try to try to do it. Uh try try to do something with your students. Include them. All of them uh deserve it and it's not difficult. Just use your imagination and do it. So I really hope that this could be useful for you in your classes and if there's any doubt or you'll like to contact me there you have my information my email my link again and if you go to the QR you can enter to the website here
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in Chile. So that's it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for coming.