Technology & Innovation: A follow-up

Last week's lesson (okay, two weeks ago... last week I was off enjoying a ski vacation in fancy-pants Megeve) focused on using the futures and language of probability using a cool infographic grace à the BBC.

This week I was at a loss for what to do to follow up with this previous lesson, and then I got it. My professional adult ESL students here in France have been requesting the use of more articles and current events in our lessons, and on the front page of Yahoo! there was an article speculating on what Apple's next product would be.  Because the article uses a lot of useful adjectives and appears to pitch the concept of a wearable computer to mass market, I thought it would be appropriate to use it not only to continue last week's discussion about the future and what is or isn't possible, but also to go back to our lessons about pitches. Which idea convinced you? Which feature do you think is most useful? Do you agree/disagree? What is your opinion? A lot of interesting and thought-provoking conversation followed, pulling out a number of useful vocabulary words.

Then, to practice comparing and contrasting, we watched the Google glasses project video on Youtube. We compared the two ideas and practiced talking about which product we preferred, what the similarities and differences were, the risks and the danger, and our overall opinions about the future of smartphone technology.

Overall, I have to say that this lesson was the perfect transition after the previous lesson's infographic. I'm really happy with the participation I had and with the fluency of my students. These were pre-intermediate and intermediate level students but I plan on doing the exact same lesson with my upper-intermediate and advanced students in the days to come.

When I'm lesson planning, I always think about what I want my end result to be and what I want my students to be able to "do". I think about my lesson plans in segments of "can-do", ending with a skill that is immediately applicable to the needs of the learner. My next challenge for myself is "what to do next?"

Any ideas? How would you follow up these two lessons integrating current events, infographics, and videos?

Adults and Second Conditional

Getting back into the swing of my normal life after my stressful Monday afternoons is always nice. This morning I had a group of my professional students that started out as "true beginners" who are now well on their way to being pre-intermediate learners. Because we had already talked about the simple past, the future, and modal verbs for giving advice/making suggestions, I thought it would be a good idea to head into the conditionals. We talked about the first conditional a few weeks ago and last week we started the second conditional by having the students ask each other what they would do in a variety of student-generated ridiculous situations.

To bring it back around to professional themes today, I created an exercise where they would have to use both first and second conditional structures for giving each other advice (and refusing advice) to deal with troublesome office situations.

Here are the scenarios I put together this morning. We only made it through discussing three of them before time was already up! They gave each other good advice and did a good job using the first conditional to reply with a "yes but if I do that, then...will happen" reply.

Without further ado, a professionals-oriented mash-up of 1st and 2nd conditional tenses for ESL learners in the Western world:

1)     My boss is blackmailing my colleague.  What would you do?
(But if I do that, then he will … )

      2)  I’m working with a client who is completely racist. What would you do?

(But if I do that, then he will …)

3) My client said he preferred to work with me “under the table”. What would you do?

(But if I do that, then he will …)

 4) Two co-workers are having an affair. His wife is a friend of mine. What would you do?

(But if I do that, then he will …)

 5) I suspect my deskmate is an alcoholic. What would you do?

(But if I do that, then he will …)

6)   I discovered bad business practices at my company. I should have a promotion next month. What would you do?

(But if I do that, then will …)

7) I haven’t had a raise (an increase in my salary) in three years but I have a lot of new responsibilities. What would you do?

(But if I do that, then…)

 8) My colleague is late to work every morning. He should have a promotion next month. Maybe if I tell my boss, I will have the promotion instead. What would you do?

(But if I do that, then …)

 9)  My manager and I don’t get along. I love my job and my team but it is very difficult to work with him. What would you do?

(But if I do that, then …)

 10) I think my colleague is secretly working for the competition. What would you do?

(But if I do that, then…)