With International Workers’ Day just around the corner, it’s the perfect time to get students talking about jobs. Whether they’re describing their current role, preparing for interviews, or discussing future plans, this topic is highly relevant. This jobs speaking ESL lesson focuses on giving students the tools they need to speak confidently about jobs using language from an Indeed video.
The idea for this lesson came from a very common classroom situation – students can often understand job-related vocabulary, but they struggle to use it fluently in speaking tasks. By combining listening, guided practice, and role-play, this lesson helps bridge that gap and prepares students for real-life communication.
In this lesson, students explore how to describe responsibilities, pros and cons, and skills, while also practising useful functional phrases such as My role involves…, One challenge is…, and Being successful in this job requires… . The aim is not only to expand vocabulary, but also to help learners organise their ideas in a more natural and professional way.
If this jobs speaking ESL lesson sounds useful, scroll to the end of the post to download the presentation, worksheet, and teacher’s notes.
Warmer: Guess the Job
Students begin by working in pairs and guessing different jobs based on short descriptions of responsibilities, pros, cons and skills. This activity is simple but very effective as it activates prior knowledge and encourages students to think about how jobs are described in real life.
Listening for Gist: A Day in the Life of a Server
Next, students move on to a video, A Day in the Life of a Server by Indeed, about a restaurant server. Before watching, they predict what the job might involve by completing a table with responsibilities, pros, cons and skills, combining the warmer with the listening part of the class. During the first viewing, students check their ideas and focus on the general meaning. They quickly understand that the job involves serving customers, working with a team, and dealing with both positive and challenging situations. If you like this video, you can check out another lesson plan based on an Indeed article – Beyond the CV: Writing a Cover Letter.
Listening for Detail: Understanding the Job
Students watch the video again, this time focusing on specific information. They complete a true/false task based on the speaker’s description of her job. This stage helps learners notice key details and reinforces important vocabulary such as deal with difficult customers, work nights, and have people skills.
Language Focus: Talking About Jobs
After the listening, students analyse useful sentence starters from the task, such as Her role involves…, She is responsible for…, One positive aspect of the job is…, and One challenge of the job is… They then match these phrases with similar expressions. This stage is crucial because it gives students flexible language they can reuse in speaking tasks, instead of relying on simple or repetitive structures.
Controlled Speaking: Job Interview
Students practise the new language in a structured interview activity. They complete short dialogues by choosing appropriate phrases, which helps them build confidence before moving on to freer speaking. Because multiple answers are possible, students are encouraged to experiment with different expressions rather than memorising fixed sentences.
Role-play: Be the Interviewer
In the next stage, students take part in a role-play. One student is the interviewer, and the other is a worker with a specific job card. They follow a clear interview structure, asking about responsibilities, pros and cons, and skills. After completing the interview, students swap roles and repeat the task with a different job. This repetition allows learners to recycle language and improve fluency.
Personalisation: Talking About YOUR Job
Students then move on to a more personal stage. They prepare answers about their own job or a job they would like to have, using the same structure as the previous activities. This helps them transfer the language from controlled practice to real-life communication. Students interview their partner and take notes. Afterwards, they present their partner’s job to the class using phrases such as He / She works as… and His / Her role involves…. This stage encourages careful listening as well as clear spoken production.
Discussion: Jobs and Preferences
The lesson finishes with a whole-class discussion. Students talk about which jobs they find interesting, which seem difficult, and what kind of job they would like to do in the future. This final stage provides a natural and meaningful context for using the language they have practised.
This jobs speaking ESL lesson gives B1 learners the tools they need to talk about jobs in a more structured and confident way. By combining listening, language analysis, and speaking practice, students move from simple descriptions to more detailed and natural communication. This lesson works well on its own or as part of a larger unit on jobs, careers, or interview skills. If you’d like to try it out with your learners, scroll down to download the presentation, worksheet, and teacher’s notes.
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