ESL WORKSHEET - Motivation in the workplace

LESSON PLAN FOR ENGLISH TEACHERS

MOTIVATION AT WORK

LinguaHouse

Oct. 21, 2024

Level: Intermediate (B1-B2)
Type of English: Business English
Tags: Business People; Business Skills; Business Ethics; Companies and Jobs; People and Places; Psychology; Office Life; Problems at Work; Article Based; 16-18 Years Old; 18+ Years Old
Publication date: 10/21/2024

This lesson looks at motivation in the workplace. Students will read an article about what managers can do to increase it and listen to three people talk about bad managers they had. Exercises focus on related vocabulary, reading and listening skills, and offer students an opportunity to discuss questions on the topic. (by Joe Wilson)

• CLICK HERE to download the student’s worksheet in American English.
• CLICK HERE to download the teacher’s lesson plan in American English.
• CLICK HERE to download/listen to the audio in American English.
• CLICK HERE to download the student’s worksheet in British English.
• CLICK HERE to download the teacher’s lesson plan in British English.
• CLICK HERE to download/listen to the audio in British English.

AUDIO TRANSCRIPT

Speaker 1: I had a manager who was really bad at communication. She was always really busy and often had to travel for her work. Meetings with her were always really quick because she never had enough time. The trouble was, she would give you something to do and never explain what it was for or give you time to ask questions about it. Then she would disappear and abandon you, so when you came across a problem, she wasn’t there to talk to about it. You either had to make a decision and hope it was the right one, or email her about it but she usually wouldn’t answer. It made me feel really hopeless as I felt I never knew what I was doing.
Speaker 2: I worked for a guy called Graham once. He was generally quite a pessimistic person in his professional and personal life. The way he talked to me about my work always felt like I was letting him down because he always focused on the problems. Each time I suggested a solution to any issue we were having; he would always find an obstacle that would stop us moving forward. At the same time, he never did anything that helped. He just found reasons why what I was doing wasn’t working. My professional life just felt like a long struggle, so it wasn’t long before I left and found somewhere to work where I could feel like I was achieving something.
Speaker 3: In the end, I decided that Laura didn’t have very much confidence. I think she wanted to feel like she was the manager for a good reason. She would deliberately give people on the team tasks to do which she knew that she had no experience in and give them a really short amount of time to do it in. Of course, they always ended in failure, leaving them feeling ineffective and stupid. The strange thing was though that it also made everyone desperate to do well and to please her. In the end though, it wasn’t long until senior management noticed that her department wasn’t performing very well and after they asked everyone some questions, she was fired. It was a terrible atmosphere to work in though.

Adapted from: https://www.linguahouse.com/esl-lesson-plans/business-english/motivation-at-work. Accessed on October 25, 2024. © 2008–2024 LinguaHouse.com. All rights reserved.