Teacher’s guide - C
C
ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES
1. SUMMARY In this section, you will have an understanding of the types of world economic activities and talk about jobs.
2. KEY CONTENTS
The difference between primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary activities;
Jobs in the four economic activities;
Favorite jobs in each economic area: reasons.
WHAT ARE THE 4 TYPES OF ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES? To talk about the four types of economic activity, it is necessary to define what economic activity is first. Economic activity is most easily defined as the activity of producing, providing, purchasing, or selling various goods or services. It is often mentioned in the context of economic geography, and it deals with the production, consumption, and exchange of goods and services based on different spatial variations of the surface of our planet. Economic activities are present in almost every aspect of our society. The easiest way to explain this is that all activities that involve money or the exchange of products are considered economic activities. Of course, this means that there are also non-economic activities. These activities do not include any exchange and can be anything, from helping a friend to study to going to a church to pray. Economic activities are mostly divided into four large types. These types are the primary, secondary, tertiary, and quaternary activities.
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GT4 | Unit 10 | Teacher’s guide - C
PRIMARY ACTIVITIES When talking about primary activities, we are referring to the activities that deal with the acquiring of natural resources directly from nature. Things like gathering, farming, hunting, fishing, forestry, and many other similar activities are considered primary economic activities. They involve trading of goods in various ways, so it makes them a vital part of the economy. They are activities that are mostly outdoor in nature. This is why the people that are engaged in these activities are often called red-collar workers.
SECONDARY ACTIVITIES Secondary activities are a little more complex. When we classify an economic activity as a secondary activity, it means that it includes the process of adding value to products by modifying them. These activities take existing products and change them in multiple ways, which adds extra value to them. The simplest way to explain these activities is to say that they include mostly manufacturing industries. So anything that gets created in factories, from processed foods to clothes, belongs to the secondary economic activities. The name we use to describe the workers in the fields of secondary economic activities is blue-collar workers.
TERTIARY ACTIVITIES The activities in this group deal with providing various kinds of service. Anything ranging from clerks and barbers to auto mechanics falls into this group. They can be most easily defined as personal and business services. A lot of these services do not offer a product that is physical in nature, but a service which we could not accomplish by ourselves. People working in tertiary activities are usually experts in specific fields that fall outside what is considered common knowledge. We call the workers in these activities pink-collar workers.
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QUATERNARY ACTIVITIES This group of activities includes all of those that are provided in special environments. A good example would be health services, which we can only get in hospitals. Some other examples include hotels which provide us with hospitality services or schools which provide us with teaching services. These activities are the hardest to describe because they cover such a wide variety of things. For example, theaters fall under quaternary activities because they provide entertainment services. We call the workers that are engaged in quaternary activities white-collar workers. Many professions today fall under this category, like software personnel, legal consultants, financial advisors, and many more. These activities can be considered a developed form of services that requires highly specific knowledge and skills, with a high level of competence in communication. Source: https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/what-are-the-4-types-of-economic-activity.html [Adapted]
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In groups, discuss the following questions:
What are examples of primary activities?
Gathering, farming, hunting, fishing, forestry
Do most people working in primary activities work indoors or outdoors?
Outdoors
Give some examples of manufactured goods.
Processed foods, clothes, automobiles, etc.
Which type of economic activity does a mechanic work in?
Tertiary
Find more examples of jobs in quaternary activities.
Doctors, nurses, teachers, principals, etc.
After the group discussion, go over the answers with the whole class.
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GT4 | Unit 10 | Teacher’s guide - C
Pair Ss up. Give one set of cards for each pair. Follow the instructions bellow. Teacher, before Ss do this activity, have a moment of scaffolding, by providing students with useful sentences and expressions to talk about the jobs.
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a.
Work in pairs. Look at the cards. Name each job and sort the cards into four quaternary categories: primary, secondary, tertiary, quaternary.
b.
Join with another pair and check your answers.
c.
Work in groups. Now each student in your group must choose one (or more jobs). Some jobs you would be interested in.
d.
Tell your group why you are interested in this job. You should describe the job: indoors/outdoors; annual salary; necessary qualifications; anything else related to the job.
3 Write an ad for a job position in your company. You are an employer and are looking for a person to work in your company. You are going to publish this ad in a job platform. Your ad should include:
A job description
The requirements for this position: education, expertise, etc.
The desired skills you are looking for.
The benefits you are offering.
A description of what the person is going to do. The person’s main responsibilities.
Share your ad with the group. Look at an example:
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GT4 | Unit 10 | Teacher’s guide - C
Material de apoio - SPEAKING ACTIVITY 2 (p. 5)
1. SETOR PRIMÁRIO:
FARMER
CATTLE BREEDER
MINER
FISHERMAN
2. SETOR SECUNDÁRIO:
GARMENT INDUSTRY WORKER
AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY WORKER
STEEL INDUSTRY WORKER
ELECTRONICS INDUSTRY WORKER
3. SETOR TERCIÁRIO:
DENTIST
MECHANIC
BARBER
LAWYER
4. SETOR QUATERNÁRIO:
NURSE
DOCTOR
TEACHER
ACTOR