| LESSON OVERVIEW
The main objectives of this lesson are to:
- engage in talking about business failure and success;
- review business-related vocabulary;
- watch part of a video about lessons from failed businesses.
Students discuss six forces of failure (e.g., competition, customer success, financial management) and watch a video segment (from 02:22 to 05:15) about famous companies that failed. They revise business-related vocabulary (e.g. gain traction, catch on with customers, a short-lived product) and discuss real-life cases. Students also share opinions about new business ideas and explain what makes a company thrive or fail.
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 DISCUSSION
This lesson starts with a warm-up where students engage in talking about business failure. They complete sentences about the success and failure of businesses and products with their own ideas. After that, students discuss what the six forces of failure (e.g. product market fit, team, timing) might be about. They give examples if possible. Moving on, students match halves of sentences about reasons why businesses fail. Then, they read the statements (e.g. Overshadowed by better-known brands, their smartwatch became a short-lived product) and decide which force of failure each one describes.
VIDEO AND MORE DISCUSSION
In this part of the lesson, students continue talking about business failure and watch part of a video about the six forces of failure. First, they look at the descriptions of four real businesses and products and brainstorm some possible reasons for them to fail. Following that, students watch part of the video and note one new thing they learned. Next, they discuss questions about business failure and recovery. Afterwards, students look at business ideas (e.g. an emotional support chatbot) and discuss how successful or collapsing they might be. Finally, they look at more ideas connected to business failure (e.g. Bad marketing is worse than a bad product) and choose one to talk about. Students agree or disagree and support their view.
WORKSHEETS
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Great choice of target vocabulary in the examples (catch on, gain traction, plummet). They really helped to discuss the video.
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