British English · B1 · Unit 5
My career
My career
By the end you can
- Describe how your working life has gone so far
- Say what you'd like to do next and why
- Understand someone's career story
Words and phrases
| British English | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| I started out as | my first job was | I started out as a waiter in a hotel in Bath. |
| I worked my way up | I slowly got better jobs in the same place | I worked my way up to manager. |
| I was promoted | I was given a higher position at work | Two years later, I was promoted to team leader. |
| change careers | start a completely different kind of work | At forty, she decided to change careers. |
| I'm thinking of | I'm considering (+ -ing) | I'm thinking of going back to college. |
| where do you see yourself | what do you hope to be doing (in the future) | Where do you see yourself in five years? |
| I left | I stopped working at (past of leave) | I left the bank in 2019. |
| made redundant | lost your job because the employer no longer needs it (British) | He was made redundant when the factory closed. |
| self-employed | working for yourself, not for a company | I've been self-employed for five years now. |
| retrain as | learn the skills for a new kind of job | I'd like to retrain as a teacher. |
| job satisfaction | the good feeling of enjoying your work | The pay isn't great, but the job satisfaction is huge. |
| a career break | a time when you stop working for a while | I took a career break to look after my kids. |
Then talk it through
Catching up with an old colleague about where your careers have taken you. In the app you have this conversation out loud or typed, with the unit's goals to tick off and corrections at the end.