Today’s post consists of 2 comprehensive sets of exercises summarized below.
AI-Era Human Resources dives into essential vocabulary in an era when automation is reshaping the workplace. Students explore everything from conducting interviews and training apprentices to navigating probationary periods and ensuring equal pay policies. But this isn’t a 2015 HR language lesson—critical thinking exercises tackle AI’s role in screening candidates, creating personalized training plans, and the ethics of productivity monitoring. Dialogues feature mental health apps, AI mentoring platforms, and remote work expansions. The question at the heart of it all: What makes a good employee in 2025? Answer: The soft skills machines can’t replicate—creativity, communication, organizational excellence, and workplace values that prioritize accessibility and fairness.
Viral Cities: Chongqing explores the language of travel and culture in the context of a unique, futuristic, and viral city: a megacity built on mountains where GPS sometimes fails, metro trains pierce through apartment buildings, and elevated roads stack 20 stories high. Students learn to talk about infrastructure, innovative transportation systems, and the challenges of unique and futuristic destinations. Critical thinking exercises explore tourism’s impact, accessibility in extreme topography, and the collision of culture with modernity. The lesson asks: What will the future look like? Chongqing suggests it’s already here—a vertical metropolis where thousand-year-old courtyards sit beneath neon-lit skyscrapers, and where tech-savvy youth navigate traditions their elders preserved even as the city transformed around them.
Download the PDF to see the contents (subscribers can download all the files at the end of the post).
Below are some excerpts from the lessons.
Human Resources Critical Thinking
HR departments now use AI to screen candidates, monitor productivity, and predict who might quit. Students decide which applications make sense and which cross the line.
Grammar Role Play: Travel Blogger and Resident (Chongqing)
A grandmother video-calling on WeChat. High-rise apartments replacing courtyard homes. Mobile payments at the wet market. These are snapshots of modern life colliding with tradition in Chongqing explored in this conversation between a travel blogger and a resident. Students are challenged to complete the dialogue with past and present tenses.
