That's English! - Module 8 - Unit 6: At Work

General questions are here. Go through them and disc uss with your partner about this topic:

• Do you like your job? What do you like most? And the least?
• Have you ever had a problem with your boss?  What was it like?  
• What would you like to change at work if you could?
• Do you remember your first day at work?  What was it like?
• When you started studying your degree you expected to find a job in that field. Were your expectations fulfilled or not? What happened?

Activity 1

Work with your partner and discuss what are the most relevant things to take into account when you start a job. Here you are some suggestions:

• job satisfaction/expectations
• earning a good salary
• possibilities for promotion
• personal satisfaction
• meeting people or/and new places

If you want to practise some listening skills go to this link talking about the best job in the world

Activity 2

This is a listening exercise about motivation. Do you think this is very important for work? In what way? Have you ever thought about this topic? What would you do to improve motivation at your work? Discuss this with your partner.

Activity 3

Have you ever had a problem at work? What was it like? How did you solve it? Discuss with your partner about this and then let's listen to this other podcast about complaining at work. Think about the suggestions of the HR manager and say your opinion.

Activity 4

If you want to go further with this topic about problems at work, here you have a video. It's quite easy so it's suitable for revision rather than for enlarging your vocabulary, although you have some new words to learn.

Activity 5

Imagine that a friend of yours is a workaholic. Discuss with your partner about his/her symptoms and possible solutions for this problem.

Grammar

There is an important grammar point in this lesson: reported speech. I guess you've seen it many times and there are many exercises to practise with it, as you can see below. Nevertheless, we'll try to work with it in conversation because it's something very common when you're speaking.

Work with your partner on these situations and try to use reported speech:

• Yesterday you phoned your best friend to tell her an argument with your partner.
• A friend of yours has told you a big problem she has. Now explain it to another mutual friend.
• You had a problem with your boss last week. Explain to your mate the conversation you had
• Last Monday you went to the doctor's. Tell your partner what you were asked and told
• Your mother called you yesterday to speak about a personal problem. Tell your siblings/friends what she told you and your answers

Exercises for Reported Speech

These are pages to work with this grammar point. Most are lists of exercises so you have plenty of them to practise.

• this is a list of exercises
• remember the importance of reported verbs: this is a list and there is an exercise at the end
• exercises with reporting verbs: exercise 1   exercise 2   
• an exercise with direct into indirect speech; click here
• another list of exercises and a link to a grammar explanation; click here
• this is a similar one but it has a list of common mistakes at the end; click here
• this is a video to do an exercise: click here
• This one is about reported speech in general: click here

Job interviews videos:

• This is a video with tips about questions and answers: click here
• There are many examples of job interviews; these are some: example 1    exemple 2