How bosses demoralize their employees

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Vocabulary - business idioms

idioms on motivation

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

LESSON OVERVIEW

This time the worksheet is not based on a TED talk but on a Think Big video, in this case Dan Ariely’s speech on psychology of motivation at work. This Business English lesson will allow your students to learn and practice 8 motivation idioms used in business. They will also have plenty of chances to talk about how companies motivate and demotivate employees and watch a video that tells how to tackle it.

C1 / Advanced90 minStandard LessonPremium Plan

VOCABULARY

The lesson consists of two sections: vocabulary and video. Students start with a pair discussion exercise during which they rank things that demotivate them at work. Then, they move to the main vocabulary task in which they have to get the meaning of 8 idioms connected to motivation and match them with their definitions. Next, they will have to use these idioms to fill in the gaps in questions which they will later have to ask and answer in pairs.

LISTENING COMPREHENSION AND DISCUSSION

What follows is the second section which is all about Dan Ariely’s video. The speech itself is introduced with a short description, then, students will watch the video and answer 5 comprehension questions. The lesson finishes off with a few discussion points on what Dan Ariely has to say about motivation.

This lesson is a bit longer than the rest, but I found the topic intriguing and worth talking about, so I added some idioms and lots of points to talk about and opportunities to use new vocabulary.

WORKSHEETS

Comments

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Leave a Reply

  1. Magdalena

    okay, happy to hear, thanks for info 🙂

  2. Andrew Gill

    nowhere near 90 minutes

    1. Stan

      Thanks for the feedback! The lesson time provided here was based on my personal experience as I used this lesson for many of my lessons years ago and it was always around 75-90 mins. I’ll ask the team to look at this lesson and evaluate the lesson time again so that we have a more objective assessment.

  3. deborah

    Love this class. However, on slide 18, the answers to questions D & E are after minute 5:10 so the vodeo has to run longer.

    1. Stan

      Happy to hear that you like that lesson! Apologies for that confusion in the e-lesson plan – students should watch the whole video. We’ve fixed the e-lesson plan straight away.

  4. anto62

    Thanks for the great lesson. Just one little thing, if I may. Page 1, ex. 2, sentence B : I’d probably replace “Reagan” with the name of some politician who is active in 2024? While it doesn’t matters that much, it may give the lesson a “fresher” feel 😉

    1. Stan

      Thanks for the comment! I guess we could have this lesson updated. I think I used ‘Reagan’ because I thought he’d be more recognizable person than, let’s say, Trump, but come think of it maybe that’s not true anymore 🙂

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