Everyone has their own take on work (love, hate, or everything in between). Why is it important? How can I instill it as part of my English class? What are the benefits for our lives, subject, and across the curriculum? Find some answers and ideas here!!

1. Values for ELT
Photo: Daily Pleasure / Flickr CC
Andrés Ramos
To find out the concepts, methodology, style, and sources supporting this series for
Values Teaching, check out “Values for ELT: Introduction And Framework” at
http://www.slideshare.net/AndrsRamos/values-for-elt-0-intro-framework-30932000
WORK

2. Are You Tired of…..
… dreams not come true yet?
… unfinished business?
… just longing to get ahead but going very slowly?
Photo: US Library of Congress / Flickr CC
Get up and do something!!

3. What Is Work All about?
“Activity that involves physical or mental effort […]
something produced by a writer, painter, musician, or
other artist; the repairing and building of something.”
Macmillan English Dictionary Online
“ Activity in which one exerts strength or faculties
to do or perform something; sustained physical or
mental effort to overcome obstacles and achieve
an objective or result.”
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Photo: Greeblie / Flickr CC
Now, let’s see work for ELT.

4. Talk The Talk about Work:
• - What do you do (for a living) ? - I’m a…
• I’m working (on / for)…
• I work (at / for / with)…
• I do (something) every (expressions of frequency)
• (Just) do it!
• I’ve been working on / making an effort /striving to (do something)…
• I’ve endeavored to (doing something)...
• “Let’s get serious about business”
• “I’ll get down to it.”
• I’m committed to getting (something) done…
• (someone) has / possesses a (not so) good / strong / hard work
ethic which enables / encourages (them) to / prevents (them) from…
Ways to assist students in practicing this, next!
Photo: LetThemTalk by Jennifer / Flickr CC

5. Walk The Walk towards Work…
Along with children:
• Engage in creative activities by helping students persist,
enjoy the process, and celebrate the finished creation.
• Include indvidual or team work with an achievable degree
of complexity / challenge, while giving step-by-step
instructions and developing problem-solving skills.
Teens can also walk this way by…
Photo: Santiago / Flickr CC

6. Photo: Alan Browser / Flickr CC
Along with teens:
• Prompt discussion on effort or work ethic from a reading,
audio file, video, website, anecdote, or prominent case.
Then elicit attitudes towards work among them.
• Help learners relate work to achievement by rewarding the
outcome of a project, community service, or entrepreneurial
effort.
• Considering students’ skills sets, lead them to coach /
assist each other in completing comprehensive tasks.
Adults and professionals can go along!
Walk The Walk towards Work…

7. Photo: Mark Interrante / Flickr CC
Along with young adults & adults or professionals:
• Help them devise new ways to be more effective and
efficient in their academic and business lives, experiment with
those ideas, and report the results back to class.
• Compare own individual and societal beliefs about work
to those in other cultures, organizations, or communities,
and draw conclusions with action points.
A few tricks of the trade to make it happen, next!
Walk The Walk towards Work…

8. Work + ELT Strategies
of Cognitive Nature
Whole Brain Teaching: Include work-promoting
activities that appeal to both brain hemisferes,
i.e. sequences + awareness of emotions / mood,
or partial facts + 360° perspective.
Mutiple Intelligences: Plan work-fostering
practice that also develops visual-spatial, logical,
mathematical, musical, kinesthetic, etc. skills.
Good for the brain! How about language acquisition?
Photo: Canadian Youth Delegation / Flickr CC

9. ESP: Ask students to share perfomance-
enhancing techniques in their disciplines
and integrate them in (out-of) class
language skills practice.
Work + ELT Strategies
of Linguistic Nature
Didactics: Use Scaffolding procedures for
class practice on the value of work to help
students effectively streamline efforts and
achieve results.
No, we’re not leaving IT out. See next!
Photo: Canadian Youth Delegation / Flickr CC

10. Mobile Learning: Get students to
create scripts, podcasts, or memes
with standard mobile / tablet apps.
Work + ELT Strategies
of Digital Nature
Blended Learning: Instant-poll students on
attitudes towards work, or use IWB to
collaborate on a work-promoting exercise.
Gamification: Use scheduling apps to plan /
simulate business activity, or city / farm management
apps to play and keep a journal on progress.
Let’s see how all this connects across the curriculum.
Photo: Canadian Youth Delegation / Flickr CC

11. Work, The Perfect Match for…
Photo: Eva García Pascual / Flickr CC
• Science: Encourage students during trial & error stages.
• Art: Try more challenging techniques for painting, modeling…
• Math: Perform larger arithmetic operations.
• Physical Education: Set fitness goals and train for them.
• Biology / Physics / Chemistry: More demanding experiments.
• History: Make timelines, summary tables, comparative analyses.
• Literature: Understand and emulate authors’ styles.
• Music: Help students practice more complex works.
• Extracurricular clubs: Organize and engage in outreach.
• Engineering: Achieve efficiency gains for advance deadlines.
• Management: Analyze and balance workloads.
• Pure / Applied Sciences: Conduct more ambitious research.
• Performing Arts: Increase production values.
Last but not least, inspiration!

12. Inspiration from Work
“Laziness may appear attractive, but work gives satisfaction.”
Anne Frank
Photo: Reza Vaziri / Flickr CC
“What is success? I think it is a mixture of having a flair for the
thing that you are doing; knowing that it is not enough, that you
have got to have hard work and a certain sense of purpose.”
Margaret Thatcher
“Do you know a hard-working man? He shall be
successful and stand before kings!”
Proverbs 22:29 (TLB)
Our next month’s value: Initiative

13. Photo: Claire Lau / Flickr CC
More Values for ELT
What you’re about to see: Cover slides of the
previous and next parts of this series and links thereto.

14. Values for ELT
PERSEVERANCE
Photo: Marcos Vasconcelos / Flickr CC
Andrés Ramos
The first installment of this series, available at
http://www.slideshare.net/AndrsRamos/values-for-elt-1-perseverance
Previously

15. Values for ELT
Photo: Kathryn McCallum / Flickr CC
Andrés Ramos
The third installment of this series, available at
http://www.slideshare.net/AndrsRamos/values-for-elt-3-initiative
INITIATIVE
Next

16. Values for ELT
WORK
Photo: Daily Pleasure / Flickr CC
Andrés Ramos
To find out the concepts, methodology, style, and sources supporting this series for
Values Teaching, check out “Values for ELT: Introduction And Framework” at
http://www.slideshare.net/AndrsRamos/values-for-elt-0-intro-framework-30932000