Working Conditions: Explanation
 

Working Conditions

• Details

Name of Item Excellent Working Conditions
Activity Type Vocabulary / Discussion
Student Level Intermediate - Upper Intermediate
Time Allowance 15 - 20 minutes
Preparation Required nothing special
Other Items Needed nothing special
Vocabulary subsidized / compulsory / warm-up / social events / paid holiday / days off / staff turnover / cubicles / transfer / pension plan / medical check-up / keep pace with inflation
Grammar Sentence patterns associated with the above words



• Instructions

This one is dedicated to all those teachers out there who aren't entirely satisfied with their working conditions and the (small minority of) employers responsible (You know who you are!). The work-sheet is best suited to students who have already "grown up" and gone out to work but I guess anyone could give it a go.

The vocabulary matching exercise may well contain enough context-information and other familiar words that students can match them all up without reaching for the dictionary. But don't let them get stuck for a long time on this.

Once everybody is happy about the words / phrases (and all have the same answers) you can move on to the discussion. Instruct students to read through the list of "working conditions" and imagine that they might be faced with them in a new job. Tell them (working individually) to mark each item as either "good" or "bad" and be prepared to explain their opinion to others.

As they finish, divide them up into groups of two or three and tell them to compare their ideas, stoppping to debate any items which they do not agree on.



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• Download And Print

You have a choice of two different methods of getting this handout to your printer. It all depends on whether your computer has "Adobe Acrobat Reader" installed. If it has, then this would be the recommended method for printing out the worksheet. Try selecting the "PDF (Adobe Acrobat)" link below. If all goes well, a new application window should appear including a print button, which when selected will print out one copy.

If, on the other hand you do not have "Adobe Acrobat" select the "HTML (web page)" link below. (Also, this method is recommended for users of Netscape Navigator, which seems to have trouble interacting with the Acrobat program like this.) If all goes well, a new browser window will open, from which you can either click the "print button" on the toolbar or open the "File" menu, select "Print" and then adjust the "Print Dialog Box" to your own preferences.

The final link below is to enable you to print this "instruction page" if you want to. Click on the link, and when the page appears on a new screen you will be able to print it using the browser's "print button" or "file menu". After printing, close the window again so that you can continue to navigate around the site.




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