Quiet quitting and quiet firing
Lesson plan overview
This Business English lesson plan explores the trends of quiet quitting and quiet firing. It is focused on idioms and word formation, as well as discussing these trends and the effort employees put in at work. It would work great in combination with the video-based lessons “Labor unions“, “Employee mindset vs entrepreneur mindset“, “How to get promoted“, “The great resignation“, “Time to take a mental health day” and “The importance of company culture“, and the worksheet “Idioms: burnout“.
Speaking: The lesson starts with an initial discussion about the extra work students do and their work-life balance.
Video 1 and vocabulary: Students watch a video “Quiet quitting” – a viral trend leaving its impact on TikTok. and answer 6 questions. Next, they look at a few extracts from the video, containing idioms (recipe for disaster, above and beyond, bend over backwards) and match the idioms to their definitions. To practice, they are asked to rephrase 3 sentences, using a suitable idiom. After that, students discuss the concept of quiet quitting and other related topics, using the questions given.
Video 2 and vocabulary: The lesson continues with the second trend: quiet firing. A definition of the term “constructive dismissal” is given and then students brainstorm reasons for constructive dismissal and actions a company can take to force an employee to quit. Then students watch the second video: Quiet firing: What you need to know about the latest workplace trend and answer 5 questions. There is a second listening task, in which students need to complete the gaps with the words they hear and they match the words to their definitions (overworked, underpaid, layoff, mistreat).
Word formation: Students work on the prefixes over-, under- and mis-. first, they are given the meaning of these prefixes and then they are asked to find examples in the video of words formed in this way. Then they complete 10 sentences with the correct form of the word given.
Speaking: The last task is a role-play between a manager and an overworked employee.
The conversation cards will provide additional speaking practice and a change to revise the target vocabulary.
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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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