Answer it, cold
Your teacher asks: So, what do you do? Answer it. Keep going until you genuinely have nothing left.
They are timing you and they will not help. Most A2 students last between eight and fifteen seconds, and the number is the point.
Seven job words. Match each to what the person actually does — several of these are commonly confused.
Three people answer the same question
Bea · eight seconds
I work in a hospital. I am a nurse.
Marco · forty seconds
I am an accountant — I work for a firm that mostly does small businesses, restaurants and shops, that sort of thing. There are about fifteen of us. I look after around forty clients, which sounds like a lot but most of them only need me twice a year.
At the moment I am training two new people, which is taking up most of my week. And we are moving to new software in January, so I am spending a lot of evenings learning that.
Halina · fifty seconds
I teach maths at a secondary school. Fourteen to eighteen year olds, mostly. I have been there six years.
This term I am also running the timetable, which nobody wants to do and which I volunteered for in a moment of madness. So I am in at seven most mornings.
The thing I actually like is the older ones. They arrive not understanding anything and by June some of them are arguing with me about proofs. That is the whole job, really.
Marco and Halina last five times longer than Bea. Answer from the evidence on the page.
1. What do Marco and Halina both add that Bea does not?
2. Marco says I am an accountant but I am training two new people. What is the difference?
3. Halina says I teach maths and I am running the timetable. Which one will still be true in three years?
4. So what does the present continuous mark here?
Two tenses, two jobs
What each one is for
| Tense | Means | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Present simple | Permanent, habitual, generally true | I teach maths. I work in a hospital. |
| Present continuous | Temporary, around now, in progress | I am running the timetable this term. |
| Present continuous | Happening at this exact second | I am talking to you. |
| Present continuous | Changing over time | The work is getting harder. |
The Brazilian trap, named early. Portuguese uses estou fazendo far more widely than English uses I am doing. So Eu estou trabalhando num banco becomes I am working in a bank for a permanent job — which in English means you are there temporarily.
I work in a bank. ✓ (my job) · I am working in a bank until September. ✓ (temporary)
Both are correct English. They say different things, and the listener believes whichever one you said.
Match each sentence to the job the tense is doing. Two are the same job.
Choose the tense
Write the verb in brackets in the present simple or the present continuous. Decide from the meaning, not from the words around it.
I (work) for a small architecture firm — that is my job, and it has been for nine years. At the moment we (design) a school, which is the biggest thing we have ever taken on. Normally I (do) the drawings, but this month I (manage) the whole project because my boss is on leave. I (not / enjoy) it much, honestly. She (come) back in April and I (count) the days.
Five sentences, five errors, all of them tense choice or the third-person -s. Rewrite each in full.
1. I am working in a bank. I have been there ten years.
2. She work in a school.
3. At the moment I work on a big project.
4. He is teaching maths for twenty years.
5. My sister study medicine.
Forty seconds, not eight
Task card · Speaking · Diagnostic
The same question again: So, what do you do?
Forty seconds minimum, this time. Job first, then what you are doing at the moment that is not the job.
- Sentence 1: your job, in the present simple.
- Then: the size of the place, who else is there, what you are responsible for.
- Then: one thing you are working on at the moment, in the present continuous — a project, a change, something with an end date.
- Finish with one thing you actually like about it.
Two decisions.
1. Your job, which you have had for six years. Which tense?
2. A project that finishes in March. Which tense?
Two timings
Your teacher has both timings. Answer before you hear them.
1. How long was your first answer, in the warm-up?
2. What made the second one longer?
3. How many times did you use the continuous for something permanent?
Before Lesson 2
One question.
1. I am working in a bank. What does an English speaker understand?
Informal input, before Lesson 2. One short Planet Money episode. Every time somebody describes their own job, write the sentence down exactly.
Five sentences. Mark each one: simple or continuous? Next lesson we look at why.