ELT in Brazil

Here’s a TBL lesson idea for your intermediate to advanced adult learners — great for business English!

Tell students that, in Han’s book, “Burnout Society”, the author describes two different forms of potential:

Positive potential: having the ability to say YES and act.
Negative potential: having the ability to say NO and not act.

In small groups, ask students to answer:
Which of these do you find the hardest to develop and why?

Take notes as students interact and when they are done give them some feedback and work on emergent language.

Set the following task for pairs of students:

• Describe a situation where you lacked positive potential and evaluate the consequences;
• Describe a situation where you lacked negative potential and evaluate the consequences;
• Answer: Which consequences were more dire? Is this a generalizable rule?

Take notes as students interact and when they are done give them some feedback and work on emergent language.