Office Stereotypes: Explanation

Office Stereotyes

• Details

Name of Item	Every Office Has One
Activity Type	Vocabulary / Discussion
Student Level	Intermediate - Upper intermediate
Time Allowance	15 - 25 minutes
Preparation Required	Preparing to explain any unknown words
Other Items Needed	nothing special
Vocabulary	boffin / perfectionist / slacker / gossip / trouble causer / stickler / workaholic / slave driver / technology freak / yes-man
Grammar	nothing special

• Instructions

You may want to explain / elicit vocabulary before students start the matching exercise, but in this instance it might be better to ask them to use dictionaries for only those words that they really can't figure out.

When doing the matching exercise, students who finish early could discuss (in small groups) whether they think the character types described are good or bad. You could explain that although the words all have a negative feel to them, some of them describe qualities that are good in less obvious ways. (e.g. a slave driver isn't nice to work under but she / he increases productivity)

Hopefully, as students complete the matching grid, they will already be thinking of colleagues (or past colleagues) who fit some of the descriptions. In the second part, they get the chance to talk about these people. Tell them to complete (some) of the sentences with names of people they know. Then, as they finish divide them into groups of three to five where they can read their sentences and answer questions about them.

In the final part, ask them to think of names in their own language for certain kinds of people commonly found in a work or school environment and to write one or two of these expressions along with English explanations in the spaces at the bottom of the page. If your class contains people from a number of different nationalities or even from a number of different professions it may be worth discussing these as well. If, on the other hand, they work in the same company they will probably all write the same things - well maybe not.