One of the questions that my learners (who are IT people) are very likely to be asked during interviews and promotion reviews is ‘Tell us about your favourite technology’. But, whatever their profession, Business English learners need to learn to speak fluently and persuasively when presenting the advantages of products, tools and options.
Here’s a ‘geeky’ lesson plan in which the learners
- watch a video of a developer talking about the features of his favourite browser (activities: gist listening, listening decoding skills)
- analyze linkers used for listing ideas
- briefly revise modal verbs (could, (don’t) have to)
- talk about their favourite tools, apps and technologies
It worked very well with my learners, who spent more than fifteen minutes discussing the relative merits of file managers and development environments. For learners who are less geeky, I included a range of other websites and apps to talk about, e.g. social networks, messengers and and to-do list apps.
Level: Intermediate (B1)
Time: 90 minutes
Materials: an editable Microsoft Word worksheet. If you don’t have Microsoft Word, you could download the .pdf file from Slideshare:
Olya Sergeeva's ELT blog 