Language in Use 249
This unit is concerned with the ways in which public bodies and businesses
make demands upon the linguistic resources of all those who apply to them for
a job. Its aim is to explore the nature of these demands and discover how
they can best be met.
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[1] The aim of this session is to examine the various procedure which are called for by relevant advertisements advertisements for jobs. The class need a large collection of relevant advertisements to work from. Divide the class into groups, give each a part of the collection, and ask them to sort it into types. Useful headings for this include: pay offered; how application should be made; who application is made to; who decides whether or not it is successful; whether or not an interview is involved. Time should be ample for this work as the sorting is likely to reveal many unsuspected aspects of job-hunting. In particular, correlations between method of application, pay scale, and status should emerge clearly.
[2] In this session, each group should choose one of the jobs from the advertisements that they have sorted, and each member of the group should write what he takes to be a suitable letter of application. Circulate the sets of letters between groups and in discussion consider how one judges from the advertisement the style of letter appropriate to it. Each group should choose the letter that they think most successfully meets the demands of the application. These letters should be circulated round the class, and discussion should focus on all those features which led to their selection.
The procedure of this unit can be used for applications which require the use of a form.
This unit can usefully be paired with J8 'Being interviewed'.