Perfumes, Soaps and Toiletries

I used the video below as a supportive material after doing the Oravia Case Study (InCompany case studies 14), and the cause-effect email exercise (Email English, 23) where the students wrote to the Chairman of the Advisory board to explain why Oravia would be removing the Crown product from the Canadian market.

The task the students were given next was:

Oravia's Advisory Board are meeting again to discuss investing in one of the following products in this TED video.  Watch this video and decide which you think would be the best match for the company.  Be prepared to discuss why you chose this product in particular.

The M&Ms problem

I showed this video in the Business English class

Before viewing, I asked the students to talk in groups and to tell each other

1. What do you think the video will about?  What do you think the speaker is going to say about why work doesn't happen at work?

Post viewing, I wrote on the board:


1. Why does Jason Fried think that work doesn't happen at work?
2. Based on your own experience, do you agree with him?

And got the students to work in small groups to tell each other their opinions.

Presentation skills

Step 1

Get students to create a presentation based on something that you have been doing in class


Step 2

Get students to go through the Death by Powerpoint presentation.  You can also share this worksheet with them:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YkWdwiGs_PLFuqECtpnxOrT-0C2TH2GDstL3YlUkOT8/edit?usp=sharing

Death by PowerPoint from Alexei Kapterev

They should then make adjustments to their presentations based on this information.


Step 3.

Get the students to watch this video as preparation for the video tomorrow:

Spaghetti Construction

This is one of those activities that will make you laugh and laugh until you cry.

Pre-Watching
- take in a packet of spaghetti, enough marshmallows to go around the groups (I usually give out 3 per group which is different from the video). Give them some cellotape and string - whatever you can drum up from the staffroom!  Tell the students the goal is to build the highest tower out of spaghetti. They have 18minutes to do this in.

- laugh a lot.

- at the end of the laughter, ask the students to tell you what the point of the activity was.


Watching
- let students watch the video.  If a fairly low-level group, turn on the English subtitles. Write on the board "What is the core message of this video?"

Post watching
- get students to discuss in pairs what they felt the core message was and what they learned from it.

- ask the students then to tell you what was different in the video from the activity they did themselves and what they learned - how would they have built their towers differently?  If no one put the marshmallow on top, what do they think would have happened in their constructions?

- which construction was the most interesting they saw? Why?

- ask students for their opinions on why children are particularly good at this activity and why recent graduates from Business school aren't. Why are architects the best of all?  Why does having an Executive admin on the team help?

- what did Tom Wujec say about the addition of "incentives"?  What is the key take-away from that information?

- ask the students if they feel that this particular activity would be interesting to do with their real work colleagues in their own countries. Why or why not?


- finally, get students to collaborate again, by writing instructions on how to create the perfect spaghetti tower.