Changing careers
Lesson plan overview
This Business English lesson is about changing careers. It is ideal for business professionals who are considering making a career change. II is focused on speaking.
It can be combined with the following lessons: “Start and grow your side hustle”, “Apprenticeships vs university”, “The importance of company culture”, “Phrasal verbs: change and innovation”, and “Idioms: entrepreneurship”, “Idioms: burnout“, and “Idioms: hesitating and changing your mind“.
Speaking: First, students look at 7 statements and decide whether or not they are true for them and for their current job. After that they discuss the statements with a partner, giving reasons are examples for their answers. Next, students look at the differences between a job change and a career change and decide what are the characteristics of each transition. Then they look at 7 scenarios and decide what action (changing careers or jobs) will be more appropriate in each case. After that students discuss a few questions related to career changes.
Vocabulary: Students look at a few situations and work out what is described in each one (side hustle, upskill, job shadowing, internship). Then they discuss how each of these things might be useful for a person who is looking to change careers. This task is similar to speaking task 3 of Cambridge First and Advanced exams.
Video: Students watch a video “How to change careers at 30” and complete 2 tasks.
The last task is focused on speaking: students imagine they are looking for a career change and discuss a few questions in pairs or small groups.
The conversation cards provide additional speaking practice.
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Teacher’s lesson plan
Student’s worksheet
Student’s interactive PDF
Conversation cards PDF
Pre-class activities
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In-class activities
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Additional resources
Each video-based lesson plan includes links to additional resources (videos and articles), which are FREE can be found online (in the pre-class activities page. These links aim to extend the learning experience, enabling students to connect classroom knowledge with real-world applications.
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Teacher’s lesson plan
Student’s worksheet
Student’s interactive PDF
Conversation cards PDF
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