Lesson 2

Listening

1. Listen to part of a podcast about the future of work. Tick (T) the speaker’s predictions about the future of work.

1. The number of people who work from home will increase. T
2. Employees will decide what their working hours will be.
3. Companies will stop telling their employees what to do.
4. Employees will be able to make more decisions at work. T
5. Employees will stop using email in ten or twenty years’ time. T
6. People will only send emails when they need to solve problems.

2. Listen again. Make notes on the information or examples that the interviewee uses to support each of his four predictions.

Prediction 1: The number of people who work from home will increase.
- working from home ‘clearly works’ as we can see from the fact that a lot of people are successfully doing it now.
- the research in this area suggests that home workers are very eficient.
- we know that working from home is good for the environment.

Prediction 2: Employees will decide what their working hours will be.
- We ‘know’ that employees are more motivated when they do this.

Prediction 3: Employees will be able to make more decisions at work.
- giving employees more responsibility usually encourages them to work harder; employees enjoy this.

Prediction 4: Employees will stop using email in ten- or twenty-years’ time.
- research suggests that people ind virtual meetings much more eficient for solving problems and brainstorming ideas than emails.
- emails are likely to become less popular in the future.

Language

5. Work in pairs. Match these sentences with their meanings.

1. I’ll remember to talk to my colleagues about having more virtual meetings. a This is something I will not forget to do in the future.

2. I remember talking to my colleagues about having more virtual meetings. b This is something I have a memory of doing in the past.

6. Work in pairs. What is the difference in meaning between these two sentences?

When you ‘stop to do something’, you stop doing the activity you were doing before you do something else.

You would usually expect that when you’ve inished doing this second activity, you will continue doing the irst activity.

When you ‘stop doing something’, you inish doing an activity altogether.