JOBS AND INTERVIEWS - PART ONE

This is part of a series of lesson plans for teaching basic English to refugees with elementary to intermediate English language skills. The plans are in twos, each pair focusing on a particular thematic point, rather than an area of grammar, function or vocabulary. This choice reflects the fact that the language chosen is for practical (hopefully immediate) use and also that my teaching situation is still fluid, not to say chaotic which means a more involved syllabus attempting to cover all bases is simply not an option at the moment.

JOBS AND INTERVIEWS - PART ONE

AIM - This is designed to introduce the names of various jobs and occupations, vocabulary associated with them and works on practicing for job interviews.

MATERIALS - Photocopies of a  job interview dialogue, small pieces of paper with names of jobs written on them, sellotape.

LEVEL - Elementary/intermediate


LESSON PLAN

1 - Write on the board

       What do you do? 
       What do you do for a living?

Explain what these phrases means, remember to include occupations such as student, mother, housewife etc. Give personal examples of jobs you do/have done.

2 Go around the class and ask each student what they do.and write their answers on the board.. Remember that many students will not be working so might be better to ask them what they did for a living in their home country. Encourage students to describe their jobs in English, if possible and also encourage the use of mime as much as possible.

3 - Elicit the names of other jobs Write their answers in English on the board and ask students to translate them into their own language(s). If possible ask a student to write the word in their own language on the board as well. It's important that you encourage students to use Google Translate (be warned the service has limited success with some languages/dialects) on their smart phones, if that is at all possible.

4 - Pick a job from the list on the board and mime it, The students guess which job you are referring to,

5 - Get students to work in pairs/small groups and each person then chooses a job from the list on the board and mimes it. The others try to guess the job then swap roles.

6 - Now explain that the students are going to play a game. The teacher asks  a person to sellotape a job to their forehead and ask the others questions to find out what the job is (but they can't say the name of the job) The teacher then asks the students questions to find out the job.

7 - Write/ask students to write down useful words/phrases/questions they will need to play this game. Put these on the board.

8 - Place a piece of paper with the job on each student's forehead and ask them to play . Encourage students to stand up and mingle rather than sit down and rely on the person next to them,

9 - Now choose 3-4 jobs and ask students in groups of 2-4 to think of as many words/phrases as possible connected with the job. Do one as an example.

E,g Teacher - class, lesson, school, mark homework etc

10 Elicit answers from the class.

11 Now ask students individually write down words/phrases about their job/occupation.

12 Students then talk about their own jobs/occupations  with the other members of the group.

FOR NEXT TIME

Ask students to think of the dream/perfect job for them and ask them if possible to look up details of such a job on the internet, for example what qualifications does it need, what does it pay, where can I do this jobs, what do they do in this occupation etc.

FOR PART TWO CLICK HERE.

Colton Harris - Moore: A lesson plan

This lesson plan is based on an article I first saw in Time about Washington state's answer to Jessie James.

Lesson Plan

This is aimed at intermediate or post intermediate students and could be used as a warm up on lessons concerned with crime or could be used as part of a lesson on discursive essay writing skills.

1 Show this photograph to your class. What crime to you think this person has committed?


2 Now students read the first paragraph of the Time article on Harris - Moore.

"Visitors hoping to catch a glimpse of the bald eagles on Camano Island in Washington State's Puget Sound are more likely to see a different bird in the sky: a police chopper skimming the cedar forests in search of an outlaw. Colton Harris-Moore, a gangly 18-year-old with furtive eyes and a dimpled chin, has been on police blotters since he was accused of stealing a bike at the age of 8. Since then, he is suspected of having committed nearly 100 burglaries in Washington, Idaho and Canada. Police allege that he graduated from bikes to cars, then to speedboats. Lately, he is suspected of stealing three small aircraft — all the more impressive given that he has never taken a single flying lesson."

3 Now divide the students into two groups.

The first group imagine they are a reporter who has been given the chance to interview Coltan. Now think of questions to ask using;

Who
What
Where
When
Which
Why
How

The second group reads the article taking notes as they will not be able to see it again. Alternatively, you could ask students to take notes from this video.



4 Pair of students from each group with the "reporters" interviewing the "Coltons". Remind both sides that they are free to improvise. This could be in the form of written answers or could be recorded as video using students mobile/cell phones.

5 Follow up ideas include essays

Decide on a suitable punishment for Colton if he were caught?

Is Colton a hero?

Would you want to be like him?

T-shirt lesson plan for EFL/ESL

T-shirt lesson plan

I've been experimenting with some t-shirt designs over the last couple of days. My inspiration comes from various stores that I've seen lately that have some absolutely brilliant t-shirt designs and I thought that we could do something similar in a lesson.

You'll need to get some blank t-shirts and transfers for all the students in your class.

1 Explain to students that they're going to design a class t-shirt and that have to find an image or logo from the internet.

2 Students spend 10 to 20 minutes on the internet (if they have access in class). Otherwise set this for homework.

3 The students bring the images to class (they can be e-mailed to the teacher, posted on their blog or students can simply make a note of the address).

4 The students the debate which image should be used. This could be done as a pyramid exercise. You could also ask them to come up with a class slogan or nickname.

5 When students have decided the print out the image as a transfer, most printers, even the cheapest ones (like mine, for example) can do this.

6 Take a group photo with everyone wearing their t-shirts and post it on their blog.

Why do all this? Well, I believe this builds up community in class and that, on its own is a tremendously powerful tool for achieving our educational goals. Also, it is cheap and easily done. What more could an educator want ?