Level 3Work

Your Brain Is Lying About Your Dream Job

Grammar: Conditionals

A Level 3 English lesson exploring work.

workconditionals

What's in this lesson

A Level 3 (intermediate) ESL lesson on work, practising conditionals. The worksheet has a reading, target vocabulary, a grammar reference with practice and discussion questions.

From the reading: Your Brain Is Lying About Your Dream Job

Here is a question. If you were to get a big promotion tomorrow, how happy would you be? Most people answer confidently: very happy. For a long time. But psychologist Daniel Kahneman found something strange. People are surprisingly bad at predicting their own future feelings. He called this affective forecasting — the ability to predict how an event will make us feel. And we are terrible at it.

Vocabulary

  • hedonic adaptation
  • intrinsic motivation
  • peak and end
  • trade-off

Grammar: Conditionals

were (all persons)
If I were a manager, I would change everything. — formal/subjunctive: use were for all subjects
If I were you…
If I were you, I would ask for a pay rise. — fixed advice phrase; never 'If I was you'

Discussion questions

  1. How do you think work will change the most in the next ten years?
  2. If you were to retrain completely, what field would you choose?
  3. Will job satisfaction become more or less important to future generations?

Your Brain Is Lying About Your Dream Job

Grammar: Conditionals

What's in this lesson:

Full lesson plan with reading, grammar, vocabulary, and discussion.

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