Work
I just saw this video about work and how and office, meetings and managers limit people’s ability to work. He proposes some interesting solutions too. It’s a funny video and probably a low to mid-intermediate level.
IBCA Coaches Blog
RSSTable Topic 4
What is Korea’s biggest challenge in the future?
Same format as before
Intro: my opinion + why
Body: examples & stories
Conclusion: my opinion
By this time the student should be comfortable with the format. I push them to expand the body section of their answer by either requiring them to cover all the WH questions (who, what, where, when, why, how) or citing one news story that they saw.
Table Topic 3
Describe a product that has made huge impact on your life.
Same format as before
Intro: my opinion + why
Body: examples & stories
Conclusion: my opinion
By this time the student should be comfortable with the format. I push them to expand the body section of their answer by either requiring them to cover all the WH questions (who, what, where, when, why, how) or citing one news story that they saw.
Table Topic 2
What is better, working together or competing against each other?
Here’s the structure they use and an example:
Intro: My opinion + Why (because…)
Body: Examples from personal experience or news articles
Conclusion: restatement of opinion.
I think that working together is better because when people work together they are more efficient, they are happier, and they produce more.
For example, last year my team leader decided to make my co-workers compete against each other. He compared the number of sales each sales person got and gave the person with the highest number of sales an award. This incentive was supposed to make us work harder and get more sales. So we all worked really hard and at the end of the month, everyone’s sales had gone down because everyone was too stressed about winning the award! (Continue the story… Please notice that I used the past tense to tell the story!)
So, I think that if people work together they are happier, more efficient and more productive.
Table Topic 1
1) At what age do people usually begin working in Korea?
2) What are your career/retirement plans?
With most table topic questions I start out with a set format and then ask furthur questions to either get more information from the student or lengthen the discussion. The format is usually like this,
Intro: My opinion + Why (because…)
Body: Examples from personal experience or news articles
Conclusion: restatement of opinion.
Malcolm Gladwell - famous ‘behavioral’ author explains how sometimes there is more than one “perfect product’ that consumers generally fall into certain categories with groups of preferences.
Seth Godin - marketing guru - explains that nowadays in business ‘safe is dangerous’ , brands need to do something special to stand out from the crowd. Vid is a bit dated, but still very relevant. Great companion piece to the article a posted earlier “Soft in the Middle”
NOTE: with the ted.com videos, the “interactive transcript” to the right of the video is a great way to jump back and forth to key phrases you want to spend time explaining. Trying to scroll back rarely works well!
As Populations Age, a Chance for Younger Nations
A really great read about the aging population in many industrialized nations, and what impact this will have on economy, markets, etc. High level reading but really offers many interesting ‘jumping off’ points for discussion.
The Golden Age of Innovation
An interesting piece looking at age discrimination and stereotypes - specifically related to creativity and innovation. Basically most of the new businesses and structural improvements in organizations come from older workers - but they get significantly less attention for it.
Forget Brainstorming
An interesting article especially relevant for marketing or creative workers. It explains that brainstorming doesn’t really work, and offers a few alternative creativity boosting concepts.
One note that has been useful for me - I explain that brainstorming is a useful tool in fleshing out and combining ideas, but for 100% pure idea creation we are better off alone - the author doesn’t really explain this clearly.
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