Pre-reading questions:
I will read each question. Then, please answer them.
- What are the common jobs in your city?
- How do you relax after a stressful day?
Vocabulary:
I will read the words, meanings, and sample sentences. Then, repeat after me.
- adopt /uh-DOPT/
- conventional /kuhn-VEN-shuh-nl /
- wisdom /WIZ-duhm/
- necessary /NES-uh-ser-ee /
- compress /kuhm-PRES/
[verb] – to accept or start to use something new
Many restaurants have adopted a digital payment system.
[adjective] – traditional and ordinary
She prefers conventional ways of living.
[noun] – the ability to use your knowledge and experience to make good decisions and judgments
Our grandfather shared some of his wisdom this afternoon.
[adjective] – needed in order to achieve a particular result
Goals are necessary for life.
[verb] – to shorten something so that it takes less time
Laura needs to compress ten pages of notes into two paragraphs.
Article reading:
Please read the whole article. Then, I will check your pronunciation and intonation.
App-based Atom Bank has adopted a four-day workweek for its 430 employees without cutting their pay. Staff now works for 34 hours over four days and get Monday or Friday off. Launched in 2016 as a mobile bank, Atom offers business loans services. “Before Covid, the conventional wisdom was you had to commute in, sit at a desk all day and repeat that process when you commuted home,” said Mr. Mullen, Atom Bank’s CEO. “Covid showed us that it wasn’t necessary…I think doing 9-5, Monday to Friday is a pretty old-fashioned way of working.”
An experiment by Microsoft Japan in 2019, in which staff worked a four-day workweek on full pay, resulted in a 40% increase in sales. On the other hand, a three-month study by the UK research foundation Wellcome Trust found that compressing work into a Monday to Thursday window could harm the productivity of employees. According to Ben Willmott, head of public policy at the Chartered Institute of Professional Development, the change to working days is a positive move but the challenge of simply reducing people’s working hours without other changes is that you can increase workers’ stress. Meanwhile, Mr. Mullen hopes that the change could attract new workers during the pandemic.
An experiment by Microsoft Japan in 2019, in which staff worked a four-day workweek on full pay, resulted in a 40% increase in sales. On the other hand, a three-month study by the UK research foundation Wellcome Trust found that compressing work into a Monday to Thursday window could harm the productivity of employees. According to Ben Willmott, head of public policy at the Chartered Institute of Professional Development, the change to working days is a positive move but the challenge of simply reducing people’s working hours without other changes is that you can increase workers’ stress. Meanwhile, Mr. Mullen hopes that the change could attract new workers during the pandemic.
Comprehension questions
I will read each question. Then, please answer them based on the article.
- How many employees does Atom Bank have?
- What services does Atom Bank offer?
- Who is Atom Bank’s CEO?
- What was the result of Microsoft Japan’s experiment in 2019?
- What did Wellcome Trust’s three-month study find?
Discussion questions
I will read each question. Then, please answer them.
- What day in the week is the busiest for you? What do you usually do on that day?
- What is the common working schedule in your country?
- If you were a CEO of a company, what changes will you implement in your company to boost the productivity of your staff?
- Do you agree that a 9-5, Monday to Friday routine is a pretty old-fashioned way of working?
- What do you think are the disadvantages of a 4-day workweek?