Open Mind Elementary
Additional LifeSkills Lesson
Unit 4  Work and Career: managing your time
Objective: to provide further practice of this soft skill
within the area of Work and Career (making a to-do
list for a particular work day, then planning their day to
make effective use of the time available).
The three-step strategy for developing this soft skill is:
Step 1 Understand any problems you have with
managing your time. (Ex. A)
Step 2 Write a to-do list and categorise each task.
(Ex. B, Ex. C)
Step 3 Decide on the best order for the tasks.
(Ex. D, Ex. E)
You may decide to highlight this strategy at the
beginning of the lesson, at the end, or as you go
through the exercises in the section. However, if you
prefer to teach this lesson without discussing the
underlying soft skill, this is also possible. The lesson is
designed to be engaging and successful either way.
For more information about teaching life skills and ideas
for highlighting the soft skill, please refer to pp. 39–40
of the Elementary Teacher’s Book.
Materials:
• board and markers
• copies of the statements in Ex. A (one for each
student) (optional)
Lead-in
To set the context for this lesson, ask the students to raise
their hand if they have a job. Put the students into small
groups, making sure you include in each group a mix of
those who work and those who don’t. Ask the students to
discuss some problems with jobs. (Those who don’t work
can use their imagination.) You may wish to elicit one or
two ideas as a class to get them started, e.g. lots of work,
the work isn’t interesting, the other people aren’t friendly.
Elicit answers as a class and write them on the board.
If the students mention anything to do with managing
their time, ask them for specific ideas on how this can be
a problem (e.g. they have too much to do; it is difficult
for the people at work to do all the work). If they don’t
mention it, add managing your time to the list and
elicit some ideas about how it is a problem. Help with
vocabulary as needed.
© Macmillan Publishers Limited 2014
A
• Put the students into new groups. Make sure
any students who have never had a job are
in a group with students who have. Write the
following statements on the board:
I don’t have time to do all my work.
I go home late from work.
I go to work early.
I work during my lunch break.
I am stressed because I have a lot of work.
I try to do more than one task at a time.
I make mistakes at work.
There aren’t enough people to do all the work.
• Read the statements aloud, checking the
meaning of stressed (worried), task (something
you need to do), and there aren’t enough people
(we need more people). Ask the students to
copy the statements into their notebook (or hand
out a printed copy to each student if you have
made them). Write the adverbs of frequency
on the board: always, often, sometimes, rarely,
never. If you prefer, dictate the adverbs in
random order and ask the students to write them
in order from 100% to 0%.
• Ask the students to work individually to look
at each statement and consider how it applies
to them. Then they should write a suitable
frequency adverb next to each one. Students
who don’t work can answer in relation to their
school/university life.
• When the students have finished, ask them
to count the number of times they used each
adverb of frequency and compare them with the
rest of the group. Point out that if they have a lot
of always and sometimes answers, they probably
need to work on their time management. Elicit
brief ideas about how they could do this.
B • For this activity, ask the students to work alone,
but if there are any students who have never
worked, pair them with a student who has
worked so that they can discuss their answers.
Write to-do list on the board and review its
meaning (a list of everything you need to do in,
for example, a day or a week). Ask the students
if they ever make to-do lists and what kind of
information they need to include on one.
Open Mind Elementary
• Write the following headings on the board:
To-do list
Day:
Task
Time
• Ask the students to copy the headings into their
notebooks and to think about what they need
to do on the next day that they are at work. Ask
them to complete the to-do list, including the
time needed for each task. The students who
have never worked can copy down their partner’s
list, asking their partner for clarification if they
don’t understand any of the tasks. Monitor and
help as needed.
C • Ask the students if there is enough time to
do all the things on their list in a single day
(possibly not). Highlight that a possible solution
is to prioritise their tasks to focus on the most
important or urgent ones. Check that they
remember the meaning of urgent (needs to be
done as soon as possible).
• Write the following codes on the board:
U/I (urgent, important)
U/NI (urgent, not important)
NU/I (not urgent, important)
NU/NI (not urgent, not important)
• Ask the students to go through their list of tasks
and to mark each task with the appropriate code.
D • Now write the following times on the board
and ask the students to copy them into their
notebook (point out that the students should
write their real working hours if they are
different):
9.00–10.00
10.00–11.00
11.00–12.00
12.00–1.00
1.00–2.00
2.00–3.00
3.00–4.00
4.00–5.00
• Explain to the students that they are going to
work individually to plan their next day at work.
Give them plenty of time to do this. Point out
that they should prioritise the most urgent and/
or important tasks first, and they should fill in the
remaining time with less important, shorter tasks.
Remind them to be realistic and to make sure they
take a lunch break. Monitor and help as needed.
© Macmillan Publishers Limited 2014
E
• When the students have finished, ask them
if they can think of any events that might
affect their time plan (e.g. their boss asks for
a meeting, extra work from their boss, a lot of
phone calls, a colleague asks for help, a printer
isn’t working etc). Point out that it may be
necessary to review their time plan regularly to
take account of these unexpected events.
• Tell the students to imagine that two things have
happened in their day: their boss says they now
have a 30 minute meeting at 3pm and they need
to do a job for their boss when they arrive at
work. Ask them to work individually to redo their
time plan to make time for these things.
F
• Write the following How to say it box on
the board:
HOW TO SAY IT
What are your most urgent and important tasks?
I need to ... What about you?
What is a good time to …?
From … until … o’clock.
What part of your plan do you need to change?
• Go through the phrases and drill the
pronunciation. Put the students into pairs to
compare their original and revised time plans.
reflect
• Erase the board and write the following
question:
Why do you sometimes need to change a
time plan?
• Give the students time to reflect on the question
individually and then discuss in pairs. Encourage
the students to think beyond the reasons given
in this lesson. Elicit ideas as a class, helping
with vocabulary as necessary (e.g. you are ill; a
colleague is ill and you need to do their work for
them; your computer breaks; you are late into
work because your bus is late).
eXtra: HOMeWOrK
Ask the students to go online and download a
blank time schedule (suggest they type blank work
schedule or blank time schedule into a search
engine). Ask them to print it and use it to plan their
time for a different day at work.