Vocabulary/Conversation exercises

I'm loving these EFL Talking Point Lessons! They are great because they help "ensanchar" the vocabulary of your students and provide great conversation questions. I've even followed the format and written my own: I'll just paste it here because my window's installer is keeping me from installing "esnips", a program that would let me upload it here. Anyhoo...

Edit May 14th: I just added "multitask" to this discussion sheet. This is a good activity to pair up with the gerund activity posted earlier.

At Work

Match the vocabulary words with the correct definitions:

to milk it to micromanage to get sacked the glass ceiling to think outside the box to multitask

1) ___________________ this term refers to situations where the advancement of a qualified person within the hierarchy of an organization is stopped at a lower level because of some form of discrimination, most commonly sexism or racism

2) ___________________ the performance of multiple tasks at one tim

3) ___________________ to manage especially with excessive control or attention to details, to meddle or try to control in detail the actions and procedures of the people working below another

4) ___________________ to get fired

5) ___________________ to have original ideas, often unconventional ones with a new perspective

6) ___________________ to take full advantage of something, to make a task last more hours than necessary especially if you are getting paid by the hour (similar to “sacar la vuelta”)

Fill in the blanks with the correct vocabulary term. Be sure to use the correct form of the verbs. (infinitive, gerund) The form of the verb is ALWAYS a gerund when it’s used directly after prepositions.

Brenda is the boss of the graphic designing department at a large advertising company. She’s meticulous, a perfectionist. She complains that her boss hasn’t promoted her because she’s a woman, that she’s hit ___________________. However, his decision has more to do with her love of _____________________ at work, than a desire to keep her at a lower level in the company. She often asks for extensions on projects. Rather than taking one month, she spends six to eight weeks finishing them. In her favor, she’s good at ____________________________, as she often comes up with innovative solutions for problems she encounters. She can do fifteen things at once; she’s a natural at __________________. She’s also responsible for four people in her department. They enjoy her trust in them and her ability to give them full responsibility of their tasks. She doesn’t meddle with their projects or try to _____________________ them, or threatening them with _____________________.

Answer the questions using would or used to.

1. Where did you use to work?

2. Name three tasks you did daily.

3. Where would you have lunch when you worked there?

Conversation questions:

1) Are you a good multitasker? (Are you good at multitasking?)

2) Have you ever felt you were being micromanaged at home or at work?

3) Do you think “the glass ceiling” is a common phenomenon at big corporations?

4) What do you think about workers who “milk it”?