Just a quick one this week because I’m on holiday and I think everyone else is too. I found this clip of a man alone in a stationery cupboard at work. Whoever made it has made the mistake of adding sound so I suggest playing it without audio to make it more realistic.

How to use it:

  1. Pause the clip after about 3 seconds and use it to teach key vocabulay (hidden camera, stationery cupboard [not to be confused with stationEry!], office employee, photocopier, etc).
  2. Ask your students what they think the man is going to do (write ideas on the board).
  3. Once students see the man sitting on the photocopier, ask them what they think happens next (write ideas on the board).
  4. Ask half of the class to take the role of the employee’s boss. Get them to write a letter to the employee to say that his actions have cost him his job.
  5. Get the other half of the class (the imaginative ones) to write a letter to the man’s boss from his lawyer. They should outline that the man had a perfectly acceptable reasons for his actions and outline what these were.
  6. Finally ask your students to write a list of rules to be put on the stationery cupboard wall.

3 Responses to “Lesson plan 18: Fired!”

Yup. Liked the video. Almost as good as the exploding whale - hilarious! Anyway, shouldn’t it be stationEry not stationAry cupboard. E as in Envelope. In fact, I can’t think of a stationery item that begins with an A, can you? (Adhesive doesn’t count, who’d ask for the adhesive!?). So it should be pretty foolproof! Just so you don’t think I’m a nitpicking twat I’d also like to say I like your website - it’s lively, interesting and quirky. Two essential classroom ingredients. But - not being nitpicking, honest! - I just couldn’t resist pointing out that wee slip!

Did I say two essential ingredients? I meant three! I added the third one after writing two. Just shows…

Thank you for that David

Always happy for my malapropisms to be pointed out. My mum has actually left comments before - once to let me know that I wrote ‘pole’ when I meant ‘poll’ and another time when I spelled ‘modal’ with an e (’model’). Dough! (or is it ‘Doh!’?).

Anyway, I have changed the text and have thought of this mnemonic way of remembering these two words:

Stationery - With E: Extra paper, Extra pens, etc
Stationary - With A: Absolutely motionless

PS What about adhesive tape? Would that work?

Something to say?