The Episode

The UK version of this global hit replaces Donald Trump with Sir Alan Sugar producing a far classier, business-focussed affair. In this week’s task, the teams become advertising executives producing a TV and press ad campaign for the mass-market.

Level and Language Focus

The video is perfect for adding a little more fun to business and professional English classes, it also has mass appeal for any adult class. There is a good variety of speaking styles: interviews direct to camera, presenting to a panel, arguing and discussing and the commentary via voice-over. The action does become rather heated and there are plenty of expletives, so the episode isn’t suitable for sensitive audiences.

There is plenty of business English vocabulary to study (see worksheet below) and a possible language extension would be to introduce the third conditional for blame, “If you had spent more time on the press ad, it wouldn’t have looked so terrible”.

Worksheet

A worksheet about the task-part of the show is available here:

The Apprentice – s01e06 Worksheet (right click, save as…)

I would recommend using the worksheet in class and instructing the students to watch the rest of the video at home for homework.

Availability

You can view the video on YouTube.

 

Self-Study

Here is a Riddle Quiz that students can complete away from class. It concerns the same material as the worksheet but, depending on the students, it could be useful for them to watch at home before watching in class.