ESL Lesson Plan: Extreme Careers

Here's one of my lessons that had great success. As you'll see with many of my future lessons, this one really focuses on group work.

Extreme Careers

3 Tips To Make This Lesson Great:

Engage the Students

What my students always love about my classes is that they can tell I'm enthusiastic about what I'm teaching. They know I don't choose a lesson to fill up time. I choose a lesson to get people talking. When I was doing this activity, I tried to go to different groups and see their thought processes for the activity. Some students were in lower levels trying to figure out the vocabulary while others were having more in depth conversations about why some jobs are more dangerous. I thought that the vocabulary being used was quite interesting (I mean, the on the job risks for a taste tester are quite amusing!) My students were able to sense this and we all shared a good laugh discussing the lives of telephone psychics. If you're not interested in this, I wouldn't suggest doing this lesson.

Use the Vocabulary in a Board Game

It's my belief that every ESL conversation teacher should be equipped with a basic board game template. When learning vocabulary, students should interact in many different ways with the material. The main activity of this lesson focuses on the comparisons of the jobs. However, I also used a board game in class. The board game centered around students discussing whether or not they would take these jobs if they were offered them. At this point, the students had two different interactions with the vocabulary and thus have made more connections to it.

Do Some Role Plays

If you plan on extending this lesson over a couple of classes, I highly suggest throwing in some role plays to increase student interaction. I would focus on interview habits especially, whether it be job interviews or ones for a news broadcast. If you're in a situation where you can assign homework, have students research some of these jobs on their own and then they can use this research in the role plays the next time you see them.