The four-day work week experiment

Summary

This downloadable lesson for C1 ESL students helps them discuss the four-day work week. This English class material uses listening and presentation tasks to explore modern work culture and boost fluency.

This lesson engages advanced English students with the relevant topic of the four-day work week. Activities start with a warm-up discussion, followed by a vocabulary matching task. Students then complete a listening gap-fill exercise on the experiment's findings. A grammar section on passive voice and connectors leads into the main task: analyzing case study data and preparing a business presentation to recommend a new company policy. The lesson concludes with a final discussion on the future of work.

Activities

• Students begin by discussing their ideal work schedule before matching key business terms like 'paradigm shift' and 'staff turnover' to their definitions, building a foundation for the lesson's core topic.
• The lesson features a listening exercise where students fill gaps in a summary about the four-day week's initial findings. This is followed by a grammar focus on using the passive voice and cause/effect connectors to report data objectively.
• The main production task involves students working in groups to analyze data from a pilot program. They use functional language from the lesson to prepare and deliver a short presentation recommending a future company policy.

The four-day work week experiment

0:00

/0

1×

Vocabulary focus

The vocabulary section focuses on key terms for discussing productivity and business management. Students will learn and practice using words and phrases such as 'paradigm shift,' 'burnout,' 'staff turnover,' 'logistical hurdles,' and 'work-life balance' in a matching exercise and subsequent speaking tasks.

Grammar focus

The grammar point centers on reporting findings objectively, a key skill for business and academic English. The lesson explains how to use the passive voice to maintain an impersonal tone and introduces cause and effect connectors like 'due to,' 'as a result of,' and 'owing to' to logically link actions and results.