teflgeek

An excellent TED talk from Nigel Marsh on the Work-Life Balance….

And of course immediately, I started thinking about how I could use this with a class….

No actual lesson plan yet, but my initial thoughts are that this would be a good one for any business classes / students, and most adult classes, possibly from Pre-Intermediate upwards, though a bit more support to access the content might be needed.

This is what I think could work:

Start off by asking the class how their days went – busy?

Then ask them to timetable out their last week as a time audit – how much time did they spend at work, how much at home, how much time on the internet, out with friends etc…

Feedback:  Ask the students to arrange themselves in different orders:  busiest / most family time / most time watching tv etc.

This could lead into a discussion about the work-life balance and how it is viewed in the local culture.

Do a content / gist listening to the video:  Do they agree with Nigel Marsh?  How similar are their lives to his?  What, in general terms, did they think about the video?

Do a detail listening to the video:  Specific questions could involve:  what were his four main points?  What other things did he recommend?

Feedback:  students compare their notes and ideas – feedback to the board on four main points & recommendations.

Task:  students can work together / individually to design the perfect working week for themselves.

Extended discussion:  What will they do differently (if anything) in the future?  What was the main thing they’re going to take away from the lesson?

Homework: go away and try to change your life!

I guess there’s also the opportunity for some language work there, possibly pre-teaching some of the key concepts that Marsh refers to in the talk / interesting collocations, expressions and phrases that he uses….

There aren’t any subtitles up for this one at the moment, nor is there an interactive tapescript available just yet, but these may yet appear, so it might be worth going back to this talk in a couple of weeks to see….

As always, any feedback, comments, criticisms and queries are welcome!