Summary
This downloadable PDF lesson plan for English teachers explores the impact of AI on the workplace. This ESL class material for B2 students uses a news report to spark discussion on whether AI is a threat or an opportunity for future careers.
This complete lesson plan guides students through a discussion on artificial intelligence. Activities include a vocabulary matching exercise, listening comprehension questions based on a BBC news report, and a grammar practice section on speculating about the future. The lesson culminates in a group speaking activity where students imagine the workplace in 2035, using the new language to discuss the changes AI might bring to their professions. It's a comprehensive resource for a modern topic.
Activities
- Students begin by discussing their personal experiences and feelings about AI's role in daily life and their future careers, activating prior knowledge and setting the stage for the lesson's topic.
- A pre-listening task introduces key vocabulary like 'leverage,' 'mismatch,' and 'inequality.' Students match these words to their definitions to prepare for the video content.
- Learners watch a BBC news report about an IMF warning on AI's impact on the global workforce and answer detailed comprehension questions to test their understanding of the main points and specific figures.
- A speaking activity challenges students to work in groups and imagine the workplace in 2035. They must use the lesson's grammar and vocabulary to discuss how AI will have changed their professions.
Vocabulary focus
This lesson focuses on vocabulary for discussing technological impact and economic change. Key terms include verbs like to leverage, to tap into, to embrace, and nouns such as productivity and inequality. Students also practice useful collocations like address concerns and benefit from in a contextualized exercise.
Grammar focus
The grammar section is dedicated to speculating about the future. Students will learn and practice the nuances between using modals of probability (may, might, could) and future forms like will and be going to to express different levels of certainty when making predictions about AI's future impact on jobs.
