Navigating a job interview

Verb Patterns (Infinitive vs. -ing)

Exclusive

60-90 min

Standard

Intermediate

Overview

This intermediate (B1) lesson is built around an entertaining video breaking down the essential dos and don'ts of a job interview. Students will use this clip to learn a few common verb patterns, focusing on when to use an infinitive or a gerund.

During the lesson, your students will rank interview preparation steps, practice listening, and share their opinions on modern work culture. They will also use their new language to prepare for and conduct job interviews with their classmates, before wrapping up with a personal writing task for homework.

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Media & Worksheets

Lesson PDFs

e-lesson Version

Our standard lessons follow a consistent six-stage flow: warm-up, a presentation based on real content (video, text or images), a contextual language focus stage, controlled practice, a free practice session, and a final homework task.

Each lesson includes a printable student worksheet and teacher’s guide with answer keys. For digital classrooms, we provide an editable Google Slides e-lesson, that is also compatible with PowerPoint.

The purpose of this stage is to activate your students' existing knowledge and prepare them for the lesson's theme.

Activity 1: The students will work in pairs to rank a list of interview preparation steps in order of importance.

During this part of the lesson, we will introduce the main content, presenting new language and concepts through video, text or images.

Activity 2: The students will work in pairs or small groups to predict common interview recommendations by creating lists of positive and negative behaviours before watching the video.

Activity 3: The students will watch the video and answer a few comprehension questions about the interview advice and behaviours shown in the clip.

Activity 4: The students will discuss questions related to the scenarios and advice shown in the video to share their opinions on modern interview standards.

This stage of of the lesson includes a contextual, interactive activity designed for presenting the target language.

Activity 5: The students will examine sentences from the video to help them identify some common verb patterns with infinitives and gerunds.

To reinforce their understanding of the new language or concepts introduced in the lesson, the students will work on a couple of controlled practice activities.

Activity 6: The students will read sentences about various professional interview scenarios and circle the correct verb form in brackets to practice the target verb patterns.

Activity 7: The students will rewrite sentences about job interviews using a specific target verb.

Activity 8: The students will take turns interviewing each other using separate questionnaires.

We move into free practice for this stage, where the students apply the language in more open-ended, communicative activities.

Activity 9: The students will discuss statements regarding modern workplace culture and career success.

Activity 10: The students will collaborate in groups to prepare for and conduct a job interview based on a choice of three highly unusual real-world job listings.

Finally, we'll encourage students to extend their learning outside of the classroom to reinforce the language and concepts covered during the lesson.

Homework task: The students will write a reflective paragraph about their career or personal development goals for the upcoming year, correctly utilising specific infinitive and gerund verb patterns.