| LESSON OVERVIEW
The main objectives of this lesson are to:
- discuss Research and Development and its various applications;
- watch and discuss a video about an R&D chef;
- analyze R&D case studies and ethical conundrums.
In this ESL lesson about innovation in business, students think about all things connected to Research and Development. They consider R&D practices in various industries and watch and discuss a video about an R&D chef. Students do a ‘this or that’ exercise about R&D tasks and share opinions on the topic. The worksheet also lets students discuss R&D case studies and analyze ethical conundrums. There is an optional vocabulary activity to revise relevant language.
60 minSpeaking ClassUnlimited Plan
This is a Speaking Class worksheet. It includes a variety of tasks that let your students practise their speaking skills. This lesson format does not focus on grammar or vocabulary. Learn more about it here.
WARM-UP AND VIDEO
This ESL lesson about innovation in business starts with a warm-up. Students begin by reading the definition of Research and Development (R&D). Then, they look at different types of companies and give examples of R&D projects each company might run. At this point in the lesson, students can do an optional vocabulary activity to prepare them for the rest of the discussion. In the activity, they have to create adjectives from nouns and nouns from verbs (e.g. strategy – strategic; improve – improvement). Afterwards, students watch a video about an R&D chef in food innovation and discuss some questions.
DISCUSSION AND OTHER TASKS
Students continue the ESL lesson about innovation in business by doing a ‘this or that’ exercise. Next, look at some responsibilities connected to R&D in the food industry and explain what task they’d prefer to do. Then, students look at some statements and complete them with their ideas and opinions. After that, they read about some R&D case studies from real companies (i.e. Eli Lilly, Segway, Tesla) and discuss some questions about the projects. Lastly, students finish discussing innovation in business by reading about five ethical R&D conundrums. They imagine they are R&D professionals considering new positions, and they need to explain if the issues would prevent them from taking the job.
WORKSHEETS
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Interesting lesson, it’s thought-provoking but doesn’t cross the line beyond what is appropriate for discussion in the classroom. I think all of my students will enjoy this lesson. Makes me think about these important questions too. Good work from the team. 😀
Thanks for your insightful comments! Really glad to hear you think it will work well for your students 🙂
My students really enjoyed this presentation. It introduced a topic they don’t often discuss, which encouraged them to think deeply and search for the right answers. They also had to use vocabulary that isn’t part of their everyday language. It sparked meaningful discussions and led to highly engaging conversations.
What a lovely comment, thank you so much! Delighted it was a success 🙂
I think the lesson is a great first draft. The questions can be long and hard to read, overly narrow, or overly broad. Some of them have obvious answers. Like this one. In the case study that says an effective Alzheimer’s drug was developed thanks to R&D efforts, the question goes “Do you think the result was worth the research? Why/Why not?”. What are students supposed to answer to that? No? Let’s not have an effective drug treatment? (The text does not even specify the length of time it took.)
Additionally, unlike most other lesson plans, this one is not giving students any reason to watch the video. The instruction is just to watch it.
I like the promise of this lesson. Bu the lesson plan is not there yet. On a positive note, exercise 1 works as a fantastic warm up.
Hey David, thank you for the detailed feedback!
We took your comment on board and we understand what you mean that perhaps this is a difficult question for students to answer. We’ve now updated the worksheet to include the research time to the box about the Alzheimer’s drug, as you’re right that this is relevant to the question. As per the range of questions from obvious to abstract, we find it can be useful for students to have this variety when it comes to speaking practise, but we can see why it might be a bit disconcerting! And we’ll try to keep it in mind going forward.
RE the video, our Speaking lessons typically do videos in a more open-ended way, as overly detailed instructions or comprehension activities are not in like with a conversation-based lesson.
Hope this helps!