II. Professions

1. Describe what these different people do in their jobs.

Example: A nurse takes care of people who are not well.

a nurse a debt collector an undertaker a referee a tax inspector a bouncer a plumber a traffic warden a conductor a bookmaker a social worker a surgeon a dustman an artist a chef a miner a private investigator a librarian a caretaker a stockbroker an editor a vet a wrestler a lifeguard

2. If you had the necessary skills/qualifications, which of these jobs:

- might you be interested in? Why?

- would you definitely not be interested in?

3. Work with a partner.

1) Choose one of the jobs from Ex.1, but don't tell your partner which one you have chosen.

2) Your partner must ask you questions to find out what the job is.

Example: Do you wear a uniform? – Yes.

3) You can only answer "yes" or "no" to the questions. When your partner has discovered the job, change over.

4) See who can discover the other person's job in the least number of questions.

4. Listening.

1) You are going to hear four people talking about their jobs. Each job appears in the box in Ex.1. Listen and decide what each person's job is.

2) Listen again and decide which speaker each of the following sentences applies to. (One of the sentences doesn't apply to any of them).

A This person says she/he was physically threatened.

B This person says her/his salary is the most important thing.

C This person has actually cried at work.

D This person most enjoys the contact with people.

E This person has had an embarrassing experience at work.

5. Discuss the following questions.

1) Would you be interested in doing any of the four jobs that you've heard about?

2) What qualities/abilities do you need to do each of these jobs well?

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III. Skills and qualifications

1. Read two people's opinions and say who you agree with and why? Does your educational institution prepare people for specific jobs?

Margareta: The trouble with graduates, people who've just left university, is that their paper qualifications are good, but they have no work experience. They just don't know how business works.

Nils: I disagree. Education should teach people how to think, not prepare them for a particular job. One of last year's recruits had graduated from Oxford in philosophy and she's doing very well!

Margareta: Philosophy's an interesting subject, but for our company it's more useful if you train as a scientist and qualify as a biologist or chemist – training for a specific job is better.

Nils: Yes, but we don't need scientists. We also need good managers, which we can achieve through in-house training courses within the company. You know we have put a lot of money into management development and management training because they are very important. You need to have some management experience for that. It's not the sort of thing you can learn when you are 20!

2. What is a skill? Try to give a definition.

Jobs, and the people who do them, can be described as:

highly skilled skilled semi-skilled unskilled

(car designer) (car production manager) (taxi driver) (car cleaner)

You can say that someone is:

skilled at + noun (electronics)

skilled in + -ing (working with large groups)

good with…computers, figures, people.

3. Work with a partner. Decide which of these jobs are generally considered to be highly skilled, skilled, semi-skilled or unskilled?

teacher office cleaner

brain surgeon fashion model

car worker on a production line bus driver

airline pilot office manager

miner fire-fighter