With the increased number of advanced students looking for different ways of improving their communication while talking about their jobs, I naturally started looking for various activities that match their interests. I want my students not only to talk about work-related things but also set them up for future homework. In this class, students get a chance to talk about progress meetings and learn how to write formal reports expressing their opinions.
I’m slowly going through all Cambridge exam tasks, and turning them into lessons with the hopes of finishing them (one day), and making them into an e-book lesson plan collection. Slowly but surely, I will be able to make this into reality. This time I opened Sample Paper 1 for C1 Advanced where I found an exam task that asks students to report on six months of working at a company. It’ll allow them to speak about their work experience while analysing a typical report structure and the use of a formal register.
At the end of the post, you can find two files available to download for free – a worksheet with the teacher’s notes and a presentation.
Start the lesson by asking students about the definition of a progress meeting and the kind of things they would expect to discuss during such a reunion. Find answers to this question by reading an exam task, and underline three content points that need to be talked about in the final exam task.
You have just completed six months in a new job. In preparation for a progress meeting, you have been asked to write a report to your manager.
Your report should explain what you feel you have achieved in the job so far, describe any problems you have had, and suggest any future training that would be suitable.
The class relies heavily on reading and analysing the exam task and answer therefore I thought that sprinkling as many speaking activities as possible may make this class a little bit more entertaining. Look at the three content points and give students some time to think about their current jobs, or previous ones in case they are currently unemployed. Allow them to share their answers in pairs.
Read the example answer, which you can also find in the C1 Advanced Handbook, and compare it with students’ previous responses. At this point, don’t focus on the missing subheadings, but on the appropriate way to answer the content criteria. Look at the three points which needed to be answered in the exam task and match them with the responses in the text. If you haven’t done it before, you can mention the writing criteria and the meaning of the content points. Students work in pairs and score content from 1 to 5. Check their scores and listen to their justifications. After that, look at an official examiner’s score and their explanation. Discuss if students agree with this score and why (not).
It’s time to draw students’ attention to the subheadings. Say that different writings have distinct styles, which need to be followed to score high in the next assessment criteria –Â communicative achievement. Reports are divided into subsections, each one beginning with a subheading. Match the subheadings to the paragraphs and ask how they could be improved to sound a bit more formal or advanced.
Another important point of communicative achievement is register. Read the answer again and discuss its general tone. Is it more formal or informal? The answer is – it is quite informal, therefore even though the answer looks like a report, it doesn’t follow its style. Look at the eight underlined words and phrases, and replace them with others more suitable for this level. You can also mention that more complex vocabulary is taken into account in the other writing criteria –Â language.
Stress the importance of planning the answers before getting into writing. Give students a few minutes to read the exam task again and plan their answers. You can either ask them to write the answers in the class or assign it as homework. If you decide to do the latter one, allow them to discuss their answers in class, one paragraph at a time to ease the process of writing.
I hope that you enjoyed yet another instalment of lesson plans based on official Cambridge exam tasks. If you did and would like more, make sure to have a look at Cambridge CAE – Writing Part 2 (review).
What is your current job achievement? Have you experienced any problems at work? What future training would you suggest?
