21st-century jobs

The Climate action in language education series:

This lesson is part of our series of 'Climate action in language education' teaching materials. There are twelve lesson plans in the series, available for teachers of primary, secondary and adult learners of English. See the full list of lesson plans in this series.

Introduction

This lesson will encourage learners to discuss the future of work and the environmental impact that the workplace can and could have. They will consider both the types of jobs that we can expect to develop in the 21st century and the nature and characteristics of the jobs. The final task will be to make a list of ideas for the future of work in light of the climate crisis and global inequality.

The lesson plan and student materials have been designed to be used in either face-to-face classrooms or remote teaching contexts. The class presentation can be used for a paper-free lesson.

Learning outcomes

• To collaborate to analyse and discuss the future of work and its environmental impacts by using 21st-century skills
• To use a selection of modal verbs as required
• To write a short analytical paragraph on a collaborative basis

Age and level

Adult learners at CEFR C1

Time

40–60 minutes face-to-face

60–90 minutes online

Materials

The materials can be downloaded below in PDF and PPTX format.

• Lesson plan for face-to-face classroom teaching
• Lesson plan for remote teaching contexts
• Class presentation
• Student worksheets

Task 1A: Lead-in (2 minutes)

• Explain to learners that they are going to think about jobs and the workplace and their environmental impact. Suggest to them that there are three kinds of jobs:
  • existing jobs that will continue into the future with some small changes, such as doctors or teachers
  • new jobs that have only recently arrived and that will continue into the future, such as cyber security
  • jobs that don’t exist yet, but that learners think will appear in the future

Task 1B: Introduction activity (8 minutes)

• Divide learners into pairs or small groups.
• Explain that they are going to do a collaborative brainstorming activity and will consider two questions:
  • What are some of the environmental impacts of the workplace?
  • How might jobs in the 21st century be different from 'older' jobs?
• Collect some ideas from the groups and discuss them at class level, putting some on the board if available. Accept all ideas, as the objective of this is to stimulate learners' knowledge of the world and creativity for the next activities.
• Ideas you might hear or might want to mention include:
  • Driving to work adds to global warming.
  • Heating or cooling in large offices adds to global warming.
  • People might work from home more often.
  • Will working weeks become longer or shorter?

Task 2A: Critical thinking and idea development (20 minutes)

• Put the learners into groups of four to six and give each group copies of worksheet 1. You can put copies of the worksheets on classroom walls if you prefer. Note: For a low-resource lesson, draw the tables on the board for learners to copy into notebooks.
• Each group should work on the worksheet for about ten minutes, covering both section one and section two. These activities are quite demanding in terms of content, so stop them at ten minutes, or before if they find it too challenging, and give each group a copy of worksheet 2. This worksheet includes a list of new vocabulary items, but the ideas around the vocabulary will help to stimulate the discussions. Allow them to continue to work on worksheet 1, but using worksheet 2, for another ten minutes. Note: for a low-resource lesson, the jobs could be written on the board and briefly explained before learner discussion. For worksheet 2, part 2, a dictation activity could be used.

Task 2B: Collaborative language review – modals (10 minutes)

• Put the learners into new groups of at least four. The groups should be composed so that each group has a mixture of members from other groups as far as possible.
• Tell the learners that in the final stage of the lesson they are going to work collaboratively to write a series of ideas about what they think and hope the future of work will be like, including how newer jobs might be 'greener'.
• Give each group some copies of worksheet 3, or put copies on the wall for learners to look at. Ask the learners to look at the examples of the sentences and modal verbs and their usage and discuss them with the other members of the group. Tell them to ask any questions at class level if nobody in the group can help them.

Task 3A: Writing statements – collaborative writing and editing (15 minutes)

• This could also be done as a consolidation activity in the following lesson.
• Ask the learners to stay in the same groups and, using the notes on all the worksheets or in their notebooks, to discuss, write and collaboratively edit four ideas about the future of work and how it might impact the environment. Each idea should have at least three sentences, and for higher-level learners in the group you could ask for more ideas and/or more sentences. This could be set up in class to complete for homework with higher-level learners.
• Allow 15 minutes for the writing activity and 5 minutes for some class-level feedback and for some examples to be shared with all the group.
• A possible follow-up or project activity would be to collect all the ideas into one document that could be shared within the institution or online.
• Note: for differentiation use assigned learners' roles within the group, such as:
  • Facilitator: checking timings and managing task
  • Note taker: making sure ideas are written down
  • Editor: checking grammar and vocabulary
  • Spokesperson: making the presentation.

Task 3B: Reflection (10–15 minutes) OPTIONAL

• Ask learners to share in their groups any new ideas they've learned and two new pieces of vocabulary they've learned. Ask the spokesperson to share ideas from their group.

Additional resource

• LearnEnglish video, 'How to talk about your job in English': https://youtu.be/CQDJKdmpxOI?si=u2Fv9vLDhAjS_1z6

Contributed by Christopher Graham

Edited by Suzanne Mordue