Christmas temporary jobs

This engaging Business English lesson focuses on the seasonal jobs commonly available during the Christmas period. It explores the challenges businesses face during the holiday rush in industries like retail, logistics, and hospitality, while equipping students with vocabulary and expressions useful for customer service. Through discussions, reading, listening, and role-play activities, students develop their language skills while gaining insights into the dynamics of holiday-season employment.

Speaking: The lesson begins with a class discussion where students identify and reflect on the challenges that businesses in retail, logistics, and hospitality face during the busy Christmas period. This discussion sets the stage for the topic by encouraging students to share their perspectives on holiday-season pressures, such as increased demand, long working hours, and staffing issues.

Vocabulary: Next, students read about three real-life bad customer experiences during the holiday rush. This activity introduces key vocabulary such as understaffed, restock, checkout lines, out of stock, shifts, warehouse, delivery, and refund. Students match these terms to their definitions and discuss a set of conversation questions to activate their understanding of the vocabulary in a practical context.

Vocabulary: The lesson then transitions to brainstorming and categorization. Students brainstorm a list of ten common seasonal jobs and discuss their typical duties and responsibilities. They also match ten other seasonal jobs (e.g., cashier, stocker, delivery driver, warehouse assistant) to their descriptions and reflect on the skills and qualifications required for these roles.

Listening: The listening component introduces students to a video titled “Target and Other Retailers Hiring Tens of Thousands of Seasonal Workers.” Students complete a listening comprehension activity, identifying key points about the demand for seasonal workers and the strategies businesses employ during the holiday rush. Following this, a post-listening discussion encourages students to compare the video’s content with their own experiences or knowledge of seasonal employment.

Functional language: Students focus on expressions commonly used in customer service. They analyze eight expressions to determine whether they are typically used by customers or employees and then categorize these and additional expressions into a table. To practice, students respond to six real-life customer service scenarios using the expressions learned. Finally, they apply their knowledge by creating and performing original dialogues related to customer service situations.

Who Is This Lesson For?

This lesson is ideal for intermediate to upper-intermediate Business English learners who are preparing for roles in retail, logistics, or hospitality, or who are interested in seasonal employment. It’s also valuable for anyone looking to improve their customer service skills and learn industry-relevant vocabulary.

By the end of the lesson, students will have a clear understanding of the challenges and opportunities associated with temporary holiday jobs, as well as the ability to handle customer service situations with confidence and professionalism.