Life skills teachers notes
Succeeding in interviews
SELF STUDY
If students are working alone, note that 1, 3b, 4a, 4b and
the REFLECT ON IT box all have open answers. If possible,
give self-study students the opportunity to show you
their work or to exchange their work with other students.
Before watching
WARMER
Ask your students to raise their hands if theyve ever
had an interview for anything. Invite students who
volunteer to tell the class about the interview. What
was it for? Where was it? What happened in the
interview? How did it go?
1 This exercise asks students to recall the advice they
know or have studied about being successful in an
interview. It prepares them for the video, but also helps
them to develop the life skill. Ask students to write
their reply, setting a time limit of five to ten minutes.
While watching
2a 27 VIDEO SKILLS Ask students to read through the
video skills box before doing this exercise. The
exercise requires students to listen for some practical
information and broadly interpret some of Hectors
skills and experience.
Answers
1 Hes just finished secondary school
2 music recording company
3 music technology and music business and finance
4 Some
5 A lot
6 Some
7 Some
VIDEO SKILLS: Recognising fillers
This focuses on a regular feature of natural speech
fillers. Emphasise that some use of fillers is necessary,
but that their overuse in more formal situations makes
you sound either too informal or unprepared.
2b 27 This exercise requires listening more intensively.
Because some answers require more than brief notes,
consider pausing the video at appropriate points to
allow students time to collect their thoughts and write.
Answers
1 Hes performed a few times at youth culture
programmes.
2 Hes wanted to do this job since he was young, and he
likes the lifestyle/being in studios.
3 Organises revision and coursework-aiding sessions,
and represents other students and brings up their
issues in school meetings.
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B2+ Unit
4 Performing for a young peoples music charity because
he was selected by his school, he played in front of a
few famous people and the event raised money.
5 To be an artist and producer and to start his own
(record) label.
6 Sit in recordings (recording sessions) and make sure
any talent (artists) are happy.
3a 27 Here, students are asked to use the context to
help them work out the meaning of some vocabulary
that they might not be familiar with. Again, you might
need to pause the video or even replay the relevant
sections if students find this challenging.
Answers
1 a company that produces records
2 things
3 useful
4 provide something that will be useful
5 good, very skilful
6 look after someone whos younger and less
experienced
3b In this exercise students develop the life skill by
evaluating Hectors performance in the interview.
Encourage students to give a detailed analysis of his
performance and refer to his strong and weak points
before they give their conclusion. Does the class
generally agree? If not, why not?
After watching
4a This task further develops the life skill by encouraging
students to put themselves in Hectors shoes and
consider what type of job they would like to have,
what skills and experiences they would mention, and
what they would want to know before accepting the
job. Encourage students to share their answers with a
partner, and invite some students to tell the class.
4b SKILLS 4 LIFE The idea here is for students to create
interview questions for a very difficult job, and to then
think about how they would answer them and try to
convince someone they were the right candidate. In
class, the activity would work well as a surprise role-
play. Pairs work together to prepare the interview, and
then two pairs work together. They take it in turns to
interview each other, but without telling the candidates
what the job is. The candidates have to answer the
questions and then guess what job the interview is for.
REFLECT ON IT
This question encourages students to reflect on
why your appearance and the way you speak
count for so much in an interview. Ask students
to brainstorm different explanations for this, and
then ask them to discuss whether they think its
fair or not.
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