Job Discussion Forums

[woza17]

Just finished teaching 6 hours of primary and junior middle school and I am on a high, so I just thought I would pass on the lessons that worked.
In the morning I taught grade 4, and gave them a genkienglish passport, you can download it from the website, you ask questions and if they get it right they get a sticker, hands up everywhere. Then on to the bargaining game, also genkienglish out in the playground. But first I taught them the song "how much is that doggie in the window " then too expensive too cheap and no way. All the parents in the playground are very impressed.
Then in the afternoon those cynical young teenagers, board games from boggleworld, which keeps them focused and opposite cards. I am on a roll. Another one that works is from englishzone the trivia board. I do thank the people from the limitless bottom of my heart for going to the trouble to post them.
I will give you one of mine that I made up, especially for people working in Hubei.
Scenario
The 3 eyed wuchang fish. Chairman Mao wrote a poem about it .
2 businesspeople from Shanghai are visiting Wuhan on business and they want to try the very famous Wuchang fish. The manager/manageress and waiter/waitress welcome them into the restaurant, they choose the fish from the live tank, but when its delivered to their table it has 3 eyes.
Now they have to explain to the customers why the fish has 3 eyes, because when it was chosen it had only 2 eyes. Hey Shanghai people what do they know, they are so proud, these sort of asides.
I really enjoyed some of the inventive excuses. Such as only when cooked will the third eye appear and another we used 2 fish to give you the third eye..
This has worked every time.
I don't know if other people have found this, but some teachers don't want to share, I have one foreign teacher who is so lovely and open, we have great impromtu workshops together.
Love this forum
Regards Carol

[oprah]

Wonderfujl suggestions.. can you provide web addresses for your recommendations..

[Roger]

Do not know "genkienglish" nor the level of your students.
Here is what I learnt through trial and error, and finally successfully in a primary school grade 4 class:
They knew "June" but not "July". They knew "name" but not "first name", and they knew "I am..." but not "I was...". They could say "sunshine" but not "the sun is shining/was shining...?, and they confused "rainy" with "rain".
COncepts of time and weather!

It took me 6 lessons to teach them to talk competently about:
- their birthdate and their birthday:
- what season it was, which months it comprised;
- which months they liked best, and why;
- what time it was, what time they do during the day;
- the use of 'was' and the use of 'am', 'are' and 'is'.

My twelve-year olds were probably the first in the whole province who could tell their friends in English "I was born on June 2, 1991", and they would also say a complete sentence like "I am twelve years OLD"!
Not that I had to tell eacjh of them how to say that!

[arioch36]

Q: What does your father do?
A: Worker.

Q: What does your mother do?
A: Worker.

Q: Does your mother work?
A: Embarrassed silence. Pause. There are four people in my family, my father, my mother, my sister, and me.

[woza17]

Hi oprah and rodger
the beauty of genkienglish is that you can adapt the lessons for each level, you should check it out and tell me what you think. Also I have been looking for material for the upcoming summer camp and found this site very interesting www.gomilpitas.com.
Is anyone else doing summer camp this year?
regards Carol

[Minhang Oz]

I teach at a technical college in Shanghai, and this really only works with students who are going to be on the job market soon. There are a lot of foreign and JV companies looking for employees with at least base level English competency, so as I'm given carte blanche with my oral classes which are around 15-20 in size, I run a full semester "Using English to get a job" course. We begin with resume writing [ok, its not all oral], which they have to save on their PC or a school one [Shanghai, remember, so no problems there], and print me a copy. Then we do the whole application and interview process, building their confidence and vocab. Assessment is a full 10 minute interview based on a job I make up to suit the class. All this is based on similar courses i taught in Australian highschools, and the response of the students and admin. has been very positive.
-full attendance [plus extras not on the roll]
-interested, alert students, and teacher!
-no more "there are three people in my family...."
All the worksheets, exemplars you need are on the net. Use companies that have a presence in your city-I used the INTEL site, which constantly recruits technicians, marketers etc. They even say what format they want CVs done in.
-

[woza17]

I have touched briefly on resume and letters of application writing and it is topic that does grab everyones interest. Quite a few of the students are in my class to improve their job prospects and hope to find a job with a foreign company.
I have read a few of my students resumes and I am surprised at how the informal the style is.
I would like to get something simple off the internet to demonstrate different styles, do you have any suggestions.
Regards carol

[Minhang Oz]

Carol
The site I got a resume template from was www.inlel.com as that was where the students were job hunting. Go to their international page>PRC page>submit resume page. However, just some general searches under terms like job interviews, resume preparation yield lots of good stuff. eg, www.jobweb.com , monster.com is another one I think. Show students how to convert their CV to text only also.

[Peter]

Praise to woza 17 for letting me know about genkienglish.

Just right for the lower primary level

[MartinK]

...

[senor boogie woogie]

To Arioch 36,

When I ask my students (whether they are primary school or college students) what your mother and/or father do, I usually get the "worker" response. I tell them that "worker' is unsatisfactory. Your father is either (a job), retired, dead, or unemployed.

I tell them that anyone with a job is a worker. George W. Bush is a worker, Hu Jintao is a worker, Mick Jagger is a worker, the lady who cleans toilets is a worker, the man who serves me my drinks is a worker, so on and so forth. This opens up new lanes of conversation about different kinds of jobs that people do.

I think the "worker" routine comes from Marxist/Socialist thought.

SENOR

[Minhang Oz]

Senor, you'll generally find that when you pursue that line of enquiry, students don't have the vocab. to answer. This then becomes an interesting lesson or two - the language of employment. The luminaries you quote are NOT workers. Workers get their hands dirty and make useful things. Farmer/peasant is the other great employment category. The latter term does carry the inbuilt putdown it does in English, as there is just one Chinese word for both.
Another favorite is "manager".....of what, I ask? A brothel, General Motors? Again, the student won't know- it just means his dad doesn't come home with dirt all over him.