B1 Speaking Skills – Dream Job

On Monday we read, talked about and ran interviews for the ‘dream job’ of working on Hamilton Island on the Great Barrier Reef.

The winner of this competition was a British guy called Ben Southall.  If you’re interested, you can read about Ben’s experience here:   http://islandreefjob.com.au/ , watch some news reports about him winning the competition here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fuvwA350ac&NR=1 / http://news.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/hi/newsbeat/newsid_8035000/8035981.stm (and here in Spanish:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/the-best-job-in-the-world/8405.html) and read about an accident he had during his last week on the island here:  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8434351.stm

What about tips for applying for jobs? 

Here is some advice offered to people who were interested in applying for the island job:  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7824386.stm

On a more general level, the video jug website has a wide collection of videos about common job interview questions like “Why don’t you tell me about yourself?” and “What are your biggest strengths and weaknesses?”  You can find them here:    http://www.videojug.com/film/job-interviews-why-dont-you-tell-me-about-yourself

Finally, on the subject of dream jobs, take a look at a page where people answer the same question we answered in class, “What’s your dream job?”  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8035375.stm 

When reading some of the comments you could try to decide if the writer is being serious or joking.

Language in the text and activities:

• The short texts here are full of examples of would to talk about hypothetical situations – 65 examples in total.  The most frequent would + verb is would be  (37 examples) and there are about 12 examples of would + a verb of liking (would like to + infinitive (I’d like to make students like English)… / would love to…).  The pattern would not + mind + verb+ing is also here (I would not mind being a quality control tester for a sweet manufactuer.)  There are also a few examples of would in a conditional pattern (e.g. If I could help to allieviate the suffering (of animals), that would be the best job in the world.)
• Words for work:  as you read through the text, how many words related to work do you meet?  Make a list of work words:  job, work abroad, retirement…
• Write about your own dream job below.  What would it be?  Why would you like to do it?  If you couldn’t do that first choice, what would your runner-up job be?