Career Characteristics Survey (Names Write-In)

Overview

This Career Characteristics Survey Activity is a great way for English beginners to build basic speaking and listening skills.

This set of instructions are for the Name Write-In version of this activity, which involves interview real people (classmates, school staff, parents, ect), write their names on the left side of the survey sheet, and then recording their personal career characteristic preferences.

Students can be introduced to this game after memorizing as few as 10 vocabulary words and 3 sentence patterns.

Each Survey Form is designed to record 12 data-points per surveyee.

Survey-taking activities like these are a classic example of an information gap activity.

Printing

Choose either the form include an example on one line or the form without an example, and simply print the needed amount of Survey Forms. Each form has space for 8-9 surveyees, but printing two copies of the form double-sided on the same sheet of paper will allow participants to survey up to 18 people with just one survey sheet.

Preparation

Aside from printing, none required.

How To Play

Roles: Participants will generally be survey-collectors, although for this activity there will need to be some people available as interviewees to be interviewed.

The survey-collectors will use verbal questions to ask the interviewees for their preferences about 12 career characteristic preferences and then record that information onto their Survey Forms.

Materials:

• Survey Forms (1 for each survey-collector)
• Pens/pens
• Clipboards (or anything else that will allow participants to add information to their Forms while in a standing position)

Time / Game Round: varied

1. Provide a Survey Form to each survey-collector participant. They will need a pen or pencil too.

2. Once the activity begins, each survey-collector should approach the interviewees one-by-one and ask them questions about which career characteristics interest them.

The survey-collectors can begin with the following question:

"How interested are you in doing a job involving ________________?"

3. If the surveyee communicates some level of interest, the following question can be asked:

"Would you say that you are very interested, somewhat interested, or just OK with doing a job involving ________________?"

4. If the surveyee is not interested doing a job with that career characteristic, the following question can be asked:

"Would you say that you are you not interested or very not interested in doing a job involving ________________?"

5. The survey-collectors can use emojis to record the level of interest each surveyee has in each career characteristic.

The example below shows how a surveyee's name can be written on the left side and their career characteristic preferences entered into the same row by drawing the correct emoji for each characteristic.

Annie's Preferences are Shown Drawn in the Orange Area

6. The survey-collectors can also collect information about surveyees' preferences about income level. The following question can be used:

"How important is having a high income to you?"

The survey-collectors should classify each surveyee's response into one of the following three categories:

The Column for Income Level Preferences is Marked in Orange

If the surveyee's answer is difficult to classify, the survey-collector may use the following question to get a clear answer:

 "Would you say that having a high income is not important, somewhat important, or very important to you?"

7. Finally, the survey-collectors can collect information about surveyees' preferences about how physically active they would like a job to be. The following question can be used:

"How physically active would you like a job to be?"

The survey-collectors may classify each surveyee's response into one of the following four categories:

The Column for Physical Activity Preferences is Marked in Orange

If the surveyee's answer is difficult to classify, the survey-collector may use the following question to get a clear answer:

 "Would you prefer a job that is not physically active, just a little physically active, somewhat physically active, or very physically active?"

Optional: When asked a question, surveyees may use the following sentence patterns to reply:

"I am very interested doing a job involving ________________."

"I am interested doing a job involving ________________."

"I'd be OK with a job involving ________________, but its not my favorite area of interest."

"I am not interested doing a job involving ________________."

"I am definitely not interested doing a job involving ________________."

Suggestions & Recommendations

• It is recommended that the teacher introducing this activity to student participants encourage them to first practice drawing each of the 5 included emoji symbols (possibly on the blank backs of their Survey Forms or on some other spare paper) before beginning the activity.
  
  
• This activity could be a classroom activity (classmates can interview each other), a school are activity (learners can find school staff members around the school to interview) or a homework activity (learners can interview people they know outside of class-time, and then come prepared to report their findings in the next class).
  
  
• After completing the activity, it may be productive to have a conversation with the participants about which career characteristics seem to be the most popular, and which ones people seem to wish to avoid.
  
  
• If having students interview actual people about their personal career characteristic preferences is inconvenient, there are two other versions of this activity that allow for simulated real-world interviewing, using fictional characters. 
  
  The Character Cards Based version makes it easy for students the play the roles of characters with a wide variety of different career interests and the Answer-Key Based is perfect for providing more structure for younger learners, while still allowing for practice of the fundamental skills of asking questions, understanding responses, and recording the collected information.