Job Discussion Forums

[schminken]

I thought I would post what I decided to do for this lesson. Thanks for all your comments and suggestions! The lesson was successful and maybe posting what I did will be helpful for others who do Business English topics.


My students have to do a work internship for Electronics next semester. I went online to all the big Electronics companies and selected a REAL internship available this year. We then read through the job ad and discussed how to read a job ad for keywords and what an interviewer may ask based on the ad.

I then gave them an example ad which wasn't so technical. I wrote a silly one up advertising for a circus clown who was a team player and had experience with children and making balloon animals. I asked them to find the key words and asked them how they could respond if the interviewer asked a question like, "Do you have any experience working in teams." or "Tell me about your past experience".

Next I gave them a list of 15 common interview questions. The questions included things like, "Why do you want to work for us ?(there was a company description in the ad).", "What is your greatest strength/weakness?, and "Tell me about yourself".

I sent them away to prep the answers. I invited two native speaker friends to conduct individual interviews based on the internship ad I gave them. I also let my friends give a "this is who I am and where I come from" speech which got the students in the right mood and they seemed to enjoy that. We conducted the interviews, wrote a few notes, and gave them feedback at the end of the interview.

The feedback I got from the students was great! They thought it was a "good experience" and inviting guest interviewers really forced them to take it seriously. I also enjoyed the lesson.

I hope this helps someone!