Steve Jobs before Apple became THE Apple
I have an adult conversation class every Tuesday and Thursday. They’re very advanced speakers, most having had lived abroad in English-speaking countries, many already have proficiency certificates. We meet these two times a week to chat in English, about various topics so that they can maintain their English fluency. There isn’t a syllabus. They prefer not to have homework, no writing tasks. So we mostly focus on actual conversation, with the eventual work with vocabulary and student-emergent language work (meaning me going unplugged whenever I see a teaching moment, prompted by a sentence or comment by one of the students). When that happens, sometimes I bring the language in a more structured way the following class, sometimes I work with it immediately, using the board or coming up with ideas on the spot.
With this group I very often use a text (taken – and sometimes adapted) from a newspaper or news website from an English-speaking country, and I love to use things that are hot off the press. So after hearing the sad news about Steve Jobs passing away, I came up with this worksheet. It’s very basic: some vocabulary work, the reading and some discussion questions. I will probably not limit myself to the questions I wrote on the worksheet. I usually guide the discussions on a student/conversation-emergent basis – depending on how and where the discussion goes.
To begin the class I will have the image of an apple projected on the board, and ask learners to say the first thing that comes to mind. I expect at least one of them will mention the company and Steve Jobs. I’ll see how much conversation I can draw from there (let them share what they know/think about the company and its founder). then I’ll give them the worksheet and go with the flow 😉
It’s nothing special. But I thought it was worth sharing, so here it is.
If you have any other ideas, use this activity in any way, I’d love to hear how it went and which adaptations/changes/extra activities you did 🙂
Box of Chocolates 