Personal Qualities

ACTIVITY
Groupwork: speaking

AIM
To discuss the qualities needed for particular jobs

GRAMMAR AND FUNCTION
Talking about people
Expressing opinions
Agreeing and disagreeing

VOCABULARY
Adjectives describing personal qualities, job titles


MATERIALS AND PREPARATION

Worksheet | Teacher's notes

Make one copy of the worksheet for each student in the class.

TIME
20-25 minutes

PROCEDURE

PART 1

Tell the students they are going to talk about personality.

Divide the class into groups of three (or pairs) and give out copies of the worksheet.

Explain that all the words on the left are adjectives to describe personality. All the vowels have been removed from the words. They must listen to clues and complete the words (check that they know the vowels are a, e, i, o and u). They can discuss the answers with other members of their group.

Read out the clues on the right below. Do not read out the words, but give extra help if the students seem to need it.

1 aggressive: someone who likes to fight
2 cautious: someone who doesn't take risks
3 conservative: someone who doesn't like change
4 creative: someone who has new ideas
5 curious: someone who wants to know about everything
6 determined: someone who won't be stopped
7 dynamic: someone with a lot of energy
8 easy-going: someone who is relaxed and tolerant
9 individualistic: someone who likes to do things their own way
10 optimistic: someone who thinks everything will be OK
11 patient: someone who doesn't get angry when they have to wait
12 reliable: someone who does what they say they will do
13 self-confident: someone who believes in him or herself
14 sensitive: someone who is aware of other people's feelings
15 sincere: someone who means what they say
16 sociable: someone who likes talking and meeting people
17 tactful: someone who finds effective ways of communicating unpleasant news
18 unemotional: someone with no feeling

Discuss the words with the students, checking understanding of meaning. Ask students to suggest opposites, synonyms and examples. Check pronunciation: word stress may be a problem with several items.

PART 2

Write on the board:

secretary engineer boxer

Brainstorm more job titles with the students.

Ask each pair or group to choose three jobs. They can choose from the jobs on the board or select others that they think of.

The students write the titles of the jobs they have chosen on the sheet in the numbered spaces. The jobs do not necessarily have to be from the corporate world. Let the students take the lead.

In discussion, they complete the worksheet with ticks, crosses or circles, according to the key at the top.

When the students have finished, invite each group to mention a couple of things they could or could not agree about.

FOLLOW-UP
Either in class or for homework, ask the students to write a recruitment advertisement (maximum 100 words) for one of the jobs they discussed. [source: Reward Intermediate Business Resource Pack]

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