There’s no business without challenges

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Vocabulary - Company-related language

Flipped

Business English worksheet for B1

This is a standalone lesson but it can also be used as part of the set titled:

LESSON OVERVIEW

This Business English worksheet for B1 students gives them opportunity to speak about different businesses and challenges they might face as well as analyse case studies of companies experiencing some problems.

B1 / Intermediate45 minFlipped LessonUnlimited Plan

This is a Flipped Classroom lesson plan. In a nutshell, it means that the first part of the lesson needs to be done by students at home. Learn more about flipped classroom and how we implement it in these lesson plans in our post.

PRE-CLASS ACTIVITIES

First, students have to learn vocabulary that they will use throughout the lesson. In the first task, they just need to study the mind map to learn different synonyms of the word company. Next, they move to an exercise on collocations and have to complete the gaps in phrases by selecting correct verbs. In that task students learn phrases such as: keep up with demand, juggle children and a career, source something locally, find a niche in the market, etc. To practise the vocab, they complete sentences with the correct verbs from the previous exercise.

IN-CLASS ACTIVITIES

Intro

The in‐class part starts with a general discussion about setting up a business, the advantages and disadvantages of being your own boss and running an enterprise, as well as reasons for opening a company. After that, students work in groups and discuss what challenges different businesses might face (e.g. a multinational corporation, a tech start-up, a state-owned enterprise).

Listening comprehension (video) and speaking part

This section starts with a pre-watching task. Students match the listed establishments to challenges they might face. Later, they watch a series of short interviews to check the answers. In the second listening comprehension task, they need to fill in the gaps with words they hear in the video. After doing the video‐related tasks, students discuss the challenges their business or the company they work for faces and has to deal with.

Finally, this Business English worksheet for B1 students finishes with 2 case studies that students should analyse in groups. Give each pair one case, let them analyse and discuss it, then you can either ask them to report their recommendations to the other group or, if you have a big enough group, you may get pairs doing the same case study together so that they can compare their opinions.

WORKSHEETS

Comments

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  1. Johanna

    Great lesson but the video is not adapted to B1 students. The accents are really difficult for English learners to understand. I advise using the subtitles.

    1. Stan

      Thanks for the feedback! It might be challenging to Ss because of the background noise and street-like style of the interviews but we encourage exposing Ss to such real-life language and variety of accents whenever possible. The video itself is not long so you can easily let your Ss listen to it (or parts of it) a few times.

    2. Agnaldo Brites

      Let me recommend you use the site Islcollective.com. It really helps when videos seem to be more difficult to understand. Assign it as a homework. Students really appreciate that.
      Good luck!

    3. Ross Duffy

      Slow down the playback speed too.

  2. Naomi

    The video is definitely too difficult for B1, do you have any other suggestions or a different video you could link it too, a range of accents isn’t just the problem here it’s the clarity of what they are saying

    1. Justa

      Naomi, thanks for your comment! It will definitely help other teachers decide whether they should use the lesson plan with their students. It’s hard to suggest other video here as the whole worksheet is built around the one we chose.

  3. Dennis Miles

    I like the lesson but is slide 6 question A correct? Should it be “regarding” or “in regards to”? thanks for all the work you guys do!

    1. Justa

      It’s correct. As regards is also used and means ‘relating to; concerning’.

  4. polinapelageya

    Amaxing informative lesson for students to catch vrarious accents and specofoc vocab in different professiona; spheres

    1. Justa

      Thank you for the feedback 🙂

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