Summary
This downloadable PDF lesson plan for English teachers helps students master corporate jargon. A great ESL class material for business English lessons, it covers common office phrases and idioms to improve professional communication skills.
Activities
- Students begin with a warm-up discussion and a matching exercise to introduce key corporate phrases and activate prior knowledge.
- Learners watch a fascinating video titled 'Why we talk like sad, beige robots at work', answering comprehension questions about the history of jargon, its use for status signaling, and its role in modern workplaces, fostering critical listening skills.
- In a practical task, students complete a realistic office email using a word bank of corporate phrases like 'loop me in' and 'take this offline', helping them understand the context in which this specific vocabulary is used.
- The lesson incorporates a grammar focus on phrasal verbs commonly used in the office.
- Working in pairs, students engage in a role-play challenge where they transform a very direct and rude email into a polite, professional message, applying the jargon and phrasal verbs they've learned to soften their language and navigate workplace etiquette.
- The lesson concludes with a group discussion on the pros and cons of using jargon at work, especially for non-native speakers.
Vocabulary focus
This lesson introduces essential corporate jargon and idioms. Key phrases include: to pivot, to circle back, to drill down, low-hanging fruit, bandwidth, loop me in, deep dive, key takeaways, take this offline, and on my radar. Students learn to decode and use these terms to sound more fluent and natural in a business environment.
Grammar focus
The grammar section concentrates on phrasal verbs commonly used in the office. It explains how a verb plus a particle can create a new, often idiomatic meaning (e.g., 'drill down', 'circle back'). Students practice rewriting sentences using phrasal verbs like 'kick off', 'look into', and 'wrap up' to improve their professional fluency.
