Teachers of English as a second language, or ESL, should begin introducing basic job vocabulary in class when students are at a beginner language level. They should continue reinforcing this vocabulary and introducing new associated language as the students' language skills develop. The most effective ESL activities related to jobs are those that contain an element of fun and that effectively motivate students to participate.

Do You Have To?
Arrange the students into groups of three or four. One student from each class thinks of a job and the other students question him to find out what the job is, using the structure, "Do you have to.." For example, "Do you have to get up early?" "Do you have to work with people?" After five minutes or when the group has guessed the first person's job, stop the activity and ask another student in each group to think of a job for the other students in the group to question him about.

Job Vocabulary
Divide the class into two groups, A and B. One person from Group A says a job, for example, "a pilot." Someone from Group B must now tell the class something that a pilot uses, for example, "an airplane." Group A should now respond with another thing that a pilot uses, and so on until one group cannot think of anything. This group then loses one point. Continue for 15 minutes or until the students' interest begins to wane.

What's My Job?
Divide students into groups of three or four. Issue each group a set of 20 slips of paper, face down, on which you have written jobs such as doctor, teacher, fireman and cab driver. Students in each group take turns picking up slips of paper and describing to the group the job written on it. For example, "This person has to study for a long time. She must be very clever and usually wears a white coat to work. She carries a stethoscope." The other students in the group attempt to guess the job. When one student in the group has successfully guessed the job, it is her turn to pick up a slip of paper and describe the job.

Jobs Race
Divide the class into two teams. Arrange each team into a line facing the board. Write on the board the letters, "A," "B" and "C." Issue each team with one whiteboard or blackboard marker. The student at the front of each line should race to the board and write a job starting with the letter "A," "B" or "C" on the board. She then runs back to her team and goes to the back of the line after handing the marker to the student at the front of the line. The student who is now at the front of the line runs to the board and writes another job before running back to her team. After two minutes, stop the activity and add up the number of jobs each team has written. Each job a team has written earns it one point. Start the activity again with the letters "D," "E" and "F." Continue repeating the activity with new letters for 20 minutes.