English ESL Conversation: A Job Interview

English ESL Conversation: A Job Interview. English ESL Worksheets to practice conversation interviewing for a job with role-plays and activity sheets

English ESL Conversation: A Job Interview

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A job interview

A Role-play Line-up

Time: 1 hour

Focus: 

The purpose of this lesson is to give false beginners some practice at job interviews in English. This lesson is intended more for adults or college students. Although, a real job interview will be much more complex, this lesson should give students a look at the vocabulary that is necessary for doing a job interview in English.

This lesson follows a format of a discussion, followed by a role-play activity.

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Preparation: 

The teacher will need to print off and photocopy three MS word documents:

• Benefits and Qualifications
• Employers Activity Sheets 
• My Qualifications Activity Sheet

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Introduction and Discussion: 

Tell the students that you will be talking about job interviews today. Define the words benefit and qualification on the board.

Make a chart with the headings benefits and qualifications on the board and ask the students to come up with some examples. Write the examples under the appropriate headings.

Now hand out the worksheet titled Benefits and Qualifications. Go over it as a class. In groups decide what the most important benefits and qualifications are. Ask a few students what benefits they want. Then ask a few students what qualifications they have.

There are a lot of vocabulary items related to benefits and qualifications so you may have to do a lot of defining for the students. For example, what is the difference between a wage and a salary?

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Role-play Activity: Job Fair

Now, comes the real focus of the class: a role-play activity to practice doing job interviews in English. Divide the class into two groups: companies seeking to hire employees and people seeking to find jobs.

The companies line up in row. And the job seekers go from company to company and ask about the jobs. The job seekers are primarily interested in what benefits they can get. The companies are primarily interested in the qualifications of potential employees.

Before you let the students go at it, you should probably model an example interview with one student. You may also want to discuss the questions that each party will want to ask (though I’ve found it is not necessary).

Both groups should fill out the table on their activity worksheet. And when they are done and if time permits, you can ask the employers who they would like to hire and why.

You can use the Employers Activity Sheets and My Qualifications Activity Sheet and the following target language:

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Vocabulary Items:

promotion,  work experience, medical insurance,  vacation, bachelor/masters/doctor degree, references,  salary wage housing, license, commissions, tips bonus, well-spoken, hardworking, discounts, training courses,  dental insurance, creativity, report card/transcript, raise neat appearance/dress.

Questions:

1. What kind of experience do you have?
2. What did you study in university?
3. Do you have any special skills?
4. What are your good points and bad points? 
5. What company do you represent?
6. What kind of job do you offer?
7. How much does the job pay?
8. Where is it located?
9. Do you offer any benefits?
10. Is there any chance for a promotion or a raise? 

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