Employment

 rights  and  responsibilities  –  lesson  plan  

 
 
Employment rights and responsibilities

Topic Employability
Level: L1/ Int 2 /B2
Time: 90 minutes

Aims
• To develop learners’ ability to listen for detail and take part in group discussions
• To give practice of making requests in an employment context
• To develop learners’ awareness of employment rights.

Introduction

This lesson is about employment rights and responsibilities. It provides learners with information
about rights and responsibilities and gives practice at identifying and using language to negotiate
in an employment context.

Before the lesson:

Consider how you will lay out information on the whiteboard. It may be useful to write
elicitations in a similar layout to the worksheet (Resource A) that learners will complete later in
the lesson.

Prepare:
• Video excerpt: from http://esol.britishcouncil.org/content/learners/english-
work/domestic-work/around-house
• Resource A1 (employer rights and responsibilities cards) - print one copy for each
learner and cut up
• Resource A2 (employee rights and responsibilities cards) - print one copy for each
learner and cut up
• If possible, print A1 and A2 on different coloured paper, to make distinguishing them
easier.
• Resource A3 (blank grid) - print one copy for each learner.
• Resource A4 (completed grid) - print one copy for tutor reference
• Glue
• Resource B1, B2 and C – one of each, for each pair of learners

Procedure

Warmer (5 mins)

• Write 'employment rights and responsibilities' on the whiteboard and elicit suggestions
about what this means, then clarify meaning. Try to elicit specific examples of an

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Employment  rights  and  responsibilities  –  lesson  plan  
 
 
employee's rights and note down on the whiteboard, in preparation for the following
listening task.

Task 1 – listening: identifying an employee's rights (10 mins)

• Write 'domestic worker' on the whiteboard and elicit meaning (ie a person who cleans and
does other housework, and usually lives in the house where they work).
• Refer back to any suggestions noted in the warmer, and clarify that these rights are for all
workers including domestic workers. Elicit further examples, if possible, of an employee's
rights, and if necessary, present and clarify concept of 'minimum wage', 'a contract' and
'paid holiday' and write on whiteboard.
• Tell learners they will watch part of a video about the lives of domestic workers and listen
for any of the rights listed on the whiteboard.
• Play a section of the video, from 02:00 minutes to approximately 04:18 minutes, which
includes examples of an employee's rights. Play the video a second time, with pauses if
necessary.
• Conduct content-based feedback to check that the concept of 'employment rights' is
understood. Give further clarification if necessary.

Suggested answers - The video mentions: a contract, (proper accommodation - NB applies to

domestic workers), the minimum wage, rest breaks, tax and National Insurance paid, paid holiday.

Differentiation

• Ask stronger learners for any relevant information they heard in addition to the rights
listed on the whiteboard.

Task 2 – identifying rights and responsibilities (20 mins)

• Refer to the word 'responsibilities' and elicit suggestions about what this means in terms
of an employee's responsibilities. Write some examples on the whiteboard.
• As the focus has been on employees, elicit suggestions about what rights and
responsibilities an employer has. Check that learners understand the concept and offer
further clarification if necessary.
• Divide the class into two groups: 'the employers' and 'the employees', and seat them on
opposite sides of the classroom. Explain that each group will have cards which they must
categorise as rights or responsibilities. ('the employers' have cards with examples of an
employer's rights and responsibilities on, and 'the employees' have cards with an
employee's rights and responsibilities on)
• Give out the cut up cards (Resource A1 or A2) and tell learners to categorise them. To
encourage collaboration, only give out enough sets of strips for one between two or three
learners. Once they have completed the task, give everyone a set of strips which
individuals will then glue onto the blank grid (Resource A3).

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Employment  rights  and  responsibilities  –  lesson  plan  
 
 
• Monitor groups and provide content-based feedback as necessary.
• Once the information is correctly categorised, give out a copy of Resource A3 and tell
learners to stick their cards on the appropriate section of the grid. Encourage all the
members of each group to peer-check by reading aloud the answers to each other.

Differentiation

• Consider how you will group learners, to offer support to weaker learners as well as any
experience learners have of being an employer or an employee.

Task 3 – jigsaw feedback: speaking and listening (15 mins)

• Put learners into pairs - an employer with an employee - and give each learner the strips
that are missing from their grid ie give Resource A1 to 'the employees' and Resource A2
to 'the employers'.
• Tell learners that the two groups (employers and employees) have different information,
and they are going to share this by reading aloud the information on their grids, so their
partner can put their strips into the correct categories.
• Monitor, making sure that learners are using speaking and listening skills to exchange the
information, and check answers. Once learners have completed the task they can glue the
remaining strips to their grids.

Task 4 – discussion (10-15 mins)

• Ask learners if they were aware of the rights and responsibilities from the previous task
and if workers in other countries have similar rights. Briefly clarify any questions learners
have over the meaning of any vocabulary, then put them into groups of four and write the
following discussion points on the whiteboard:
Do workers in your country have similar rights?
What do you know about unfair treatment at work in the UK?
What would you do if someone you knew was being denied their rights at work?
• Monitor discussions and note down any errors or examples of useful language to feed back
after the task.

Differentiation

Ask quieter / learners with weaker speaking skills to give feedback on their group's discussion.

Task 5 – role-play - (20 mins)

• Tell learners they are going to role-play a negotiation between an employer and an
employee. Ask if learners have any experience of this (eg asking for time off).

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Employment  rights  and  responsibilities  –  lesson  plan  
 
 
• Play the role-play scenes from the video (found at 02:35, 03:06, 04:17, 04:48, 06:23
minutes) and after each excerpt, ask learners questions to check understanding of the
content.
• Display the 'Task 3 - Negotiating' activity (found below the video), which focuses on
contextual language and complete it, open class. Highlight the functional part of each
sentence, and discuss how it can be used in different situations.
• Split learners into two groups: employers / employees and give out the situation sheets
(Resource B1/B2). Tell groups to look at the situations and decide what they'd say in
each, remembering their role as employer or employee.
• Take in the situation sheets, then put learners into pairs (employer and employee) and
give each pair a situation card (Resource C) and give them 2 minutes to carry out the
conversation. After 2 minutes, decide whether learners should stay in the same pairs and
perform a different situation or re-do the same role-play with a different partner. Monitor
the language being used.
• End the task by praising any examples of good language use and group correction of any
errors, as well as examples of any solutions found, intractable disputes etc.

Cooler - spelling quiz - (5 mins)

• Pick words covered in the lesson and ask learners to spell them aloud. This can be done in
teams, with a point scored for each correct spelling. Teams could also suggest words for
other teams to spell.

Extension activities / Homework

Learners can complete the remaining self access activities related to the domestic worker video
on ESOL Nexus website.

To find out more about employment rights, learners can try these self access reading activities:
http://esol.britishcouncil.org/content/learners/english-for-work/your-rights-at-work

4   ©  British  Council  2014