Upper-intermediate

Participating in meetings
Talking about talents and skills

Lead-in

1 Work in pairs and discuss the following.

a Are you a well organised person?
b Are you good with numbers?
c Can you motivate others when necessary? What do you do?
d Are you good with your hands?
e Do you consider yourself to be a good team player? Why? Why not?
f What does it take to get on well with people?
2 Which of these talents and skills do you consider most important at work and at home?

Input

1 Look at the jobs below and think about the talents, skills and qualifications that are important
for each job.
Jobs:
• Hotel receptionist • English teacher
• Long distance lorry driver • Accounts manager
• Editor in a publishing company
2 Read about some job seekers and choose the best person for each job listed above. Note that
there are more job seekers than jobs. Try to think of new jobs for the other, unsuccessful job
seekers.

Job seekers
Henry Short ____________
Henry likes swimming and runs 10km a day. He
has had a clean driving licence for 20 years and
a degree in Maths. He has done several online
courses in management and human resources.
He has two young children and lists his main
achievement to date as the fact that his university
debate team won the national championship twice.
Barry Adams ____________
One thing Barry can’t stand is disorganisation
– it makes him anxious and so his book and CD
collection are arranged alphabetically. He loves
playing football and also plays for the darts team
in his local pub. He lifts weights twice a week at
the local gym and during the summer loves taking
his family on a holiday touring a part of his country
they haven’t visited yet. He prides himself on the
fact that they’ve never got lost yet!
James Jackson ____________
James prefers to work on his own and finds
collaborating with others quite stressful, as they
never pay as much attention to detail as he does.
His clothes are meticulously ordered by colour
and he often writes letters to newspapers when
he spots grammatical or spelling mistakes.
Andy Brown ____________
Andy loves going to parties and spends a lot
of the time on his mobile phone chatting to his
buddies or on Facebook keeping up with what’s
going on. Previously he worked as a salesman
for medical equipment and has some training in
presentation skills. He used to drive round the
country, spending three or four evenings a week
away from home. He hated the reports he had to
write for his previous job.

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Linda Carlton ____________
Linda speaks three foreign languages, but she’s
also good with numbers and likes to think she’s
good in both the scientific and artistic areas. She’s a
champion chess player and goes orienteering with
a group of friends at the weekend. She has done
voluntary work for ‘Victim support’ for several years,
and feels this is very important work.
Julie Johnson ____________
Julie loves travelling and finding out about different
cultures. She dislikes routine and gets bored easily.
She worked part time in a children’s nursery while at
university and at the moment is writing a children’s
book, although she has no children of her own. She
also loves making things. She knits her own jumpers
and makes a lot of her own clothes. She’s interested
in ecology and tries to live a ‘green’ life.
3 Discuss your ideas with a partner.
1 Are your partner’s and your ideas the same or different?
2 Why did you choose each person for each job?
3 What new jobs did you select for the other, unsuccessful job seekers?
Language Focus
1 Complete these phrases to talk about likes and dislikes related to your job. Tell your partner.
1 I love
2 What I’m not so keen on is
3 It can be annoying to
4 One thing I really like about my job is
5 I don’t mind
6 I don’t like it when
7 One bad thing about my job is
© British Council
Upper-intermediate
Participating in meetings
Talking about talents and skills
Helen Carter ____________
Helen is a bit of a workaholic. She admits to getting
bored easily so always has lots of ‘irons in the fire’
at the same time. She always focuses on what
needs to be done now, but draws up timetables of
things to do when she is under pressure. She can
get anxious, but does lots of exercise to overcome
this. In her free time she reads and she also loves
cooking. She has her own blog on cake making and
loves swapping recipes with other people. She has
two young children and makes up stories to tell
them at bedtime every day.
Lauren Davis ____________
Lauren used to work for a theatre group who
travelled round the country putting on shows
in small villages to bring art to the people, but
government funding ran out and now she’s looking
for another job. She is proud of the fact that she
lives a frugal lifestyle and makes most of what she
needs herself from what she can find around her.
She lives in the countryside and doesn’t like big
cities or computers.
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 Upper-intermediate
Participating in meetings
Talking about talents and skills

2 Work with a partner and write the following expressions under the correct heading in the table.
to have a good imagination to be a good communicator
to be patient to be flexible
to have a good sense of space to have good driving skills
to be sensitive to other’s emotions to be a good listener
to have self discipline to have a positive attitude
to have lots of energy and stamina to pay attention to detail
to have a good sense of direction to prioritise effectively

People skills Physical skills Mental skills

Task

1 Work in pairs. What skills and likes would you need for these jobs?
• the Prime Minister • a shop assistant
• a driving instructor • a software developer
• a teacher • a food scientist
Use language like this to help you:

I think an actor would I think a driving instructor I don’t think a teacher

need to ... would need to like ....ing would need to ...

2 Report back to the class.

We decided ... Everyone agreed that...

© British Council ARC_B2_01_U006CEU_HO_v1.1

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 Upper-intermediate
Participating in meetings
Talking about talents and skills

Review

© British Council ARC_B2_01_U006CEU_HO_v1.1

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