Your next level: phrasal verbs for talking about career goals
About this lesson
With phrasal verbs for career goals like take on and step up, learners plan their next level in this B2 English for IT lesson plan.
- Grammar
- Ten career phrasal verbs, where it goes (take it on, look into it) and goal frames such as I'm aiming to… and I'd like to have…
- Topic
- Two roads after senior engineer, management or the staff path, in a developer's growth plan, with individual contributor, mentor, sponsor and force multiplier.
- Activities
- A story about a book on the staff path, a growth plan, a call with a staff engineer, self-checking drills, a one-on-one chat, a wheel, and a plan to write and a talk to record.
What's inside
Chapter 1Warm-up: Which Way Up?
Chapter 2The Story: Two Roads After Senior
Chapter 3At Work: Wes's Growth Plan
Chapter 4Listen: Ask a Staff Engineer
Chapter 5Grammar: Take It On!
- Study the scheme: career phrasal verbs and goalsGrammar schemeTry it
- Choose the correct particleChoose the optionTry it
- Choose the correct replyQuizUnlock
- Rewrite the sentences with it or them: fill in the gapsFill in the gapsUnlock
- Choose the correct option to complete each goalChoose the optionUnlock
- Fill in the gaps in the growth plan with the correct form of the verbFill in the gapsUnlock
Chapter 6Speak Up: Your Next Level
Chapter 7Homework: Your Growth Plan
- Read your phrase bankReal-life documentUnlock
- Choose the correct option: Priya's notes after the callChoose the optionUnlock
- Match the career words to their meaningsMemory gameUnlock
- Write your own growth planWriting, checked by the teacherUnlock
- Record a talk about where you'd like to be in two yearsSpeaking, checked by the teacherUnlock
Vocabulary
12 words and phrases from the lesson, each with a picture and audio in edio.
+9 more with pictures and audio in the lessonMore words
- a career path
- a promotion
- a mentor
- a sponsor
- a force multiplier
- take on
- step up
- branch out
- delegate
Grammar: career phrasal verbs and goal frames
A growth plan runs on phrasal verbs: you take on a project, pick up a skill and step up when nobody else does. Learners meet ten of them in a senior developer's plan, see where a pronoun goes in each one, and add four frames for goals, from I'd like to… to In a year's time, I'd like to have…
Career phrasal verbs and goals
Ten phrasal verbs for growing at work, where the object goes, and four ways to talk about your goals.
Ten phrasal verbs for growing at work
Four of them name a career move: take on, step up, move on, branch out. Six are for learning and keeping track: pick up Swift, keep up with Android, look into a crash, sign up for a course, follow up on a decision, catch up on the docs.
| Phrasal verb | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| take on + a task | accept a new task or responsibility | I'd like to take on a cross-team project. |
| step up (to a role) | act or lead when it's needed | Nobody owned the plan, so Priya stepped up. |
| move on (to / from) | leave a role or project for the next one | She moved on from being the fastest coder. |
| pick up + a skill | learn, often while working | I'm picking up Swift. |
| branch out (into) | start work in a new area | I'd like to branch out into backend work. |
| keep up with + news, people | stay up to date with | I read a newsletter to keep up with Android. |
| look into + a problem | find out more about | I'll look into cross-team work. |
| sign up for + a course | put your name down for | I'll sign up for a system design course. |
| follow up on + a decision | check later and act | I'll follow up on the payouts sprint. |
| catch up on + work you missed | do what you had no time for | I need to catch up on the design docs. |
Where it and them go
Take on and pick up are separable: a short noun can go after or in the middle, but a pronoun always goes in the middle: take it on, pick it up. Look into and three-part verbs never split: look into it, sign up for it, follow up on it.
Where does the object go?
Separable: take on, pick up (also turn down, hand over)
- a noun after or in the middle: take on the project / take the project on
- a pronoun always in the middle: take it on, pick it up, turn it down
Inseparable: look into and all three-part verbs
- look into the crash → look into it
- keep up with them, sign up for it, follow up on it, catch up on them
No object: step up, move on, branch out
- Nobody owned it, so I stepped up.
- Before an object, add a preposition: step up to a role, move on to a new team, branch out into data work.
Short noun, long noun, pronoun
With a separable verb, a short noun can go after the verb or in the middle (pick up Swift / pick Swift up), but a pronoun always goes in the middle (pick it up). A long noun goes after the whole verb: take on the Android side of the payouts project.
Step up, move on, branch out: no object
Step up, move on and branch out take no object: Nobody owned the plan, so I stepped up. Before an object, add a preposition: step up to a role, move on to a new team, branch out into data work.
- Years ago, a big project had no owner, so I stepped up and wrote the plan.
- The hardest part was moving on from being the fastest coder in the room.
- Teach two people what you look for, then let them take it on.
- Pick it up a little every week.
- I'm aiming to grow two tech leads.
- In a year's time, I'd like to have handed over most of Ledger v2.
Four frames for goals
I'd like to and I'm hoping to take a base verb; aim takes to + verb or for + noun: I'm aiming for a staff role. For a goal finished by a future time, add have + past participle: In a year's time, I'd like to have led a project.
| Frame | Next comes | Example |
|---|---|---|
| I'd like to … | the base form | I'd like to take on more design work. |
| I'm hoping to … | the base form | I'm hoping to pick up some Swift. |
| I'm aiming to … / I'm aiming for … | to + verb / for + noun | I'm aiming to become a staff engineer. I'm aiming for a staff role. |
| In a year's time (or A year from now), I'd like to have … | the past participle | In a year's time, I'd like to have led a cross-team project. |
Typical mistakes
That project? I'd love to take on it.
That project? I'd love to take it on.
take on is separable: the pronoun goes in the middle
The app crashes on old phones. I'll look it into.
The app crashes on old phones. I'll look into it.
look into never splits
I read a blog to keep up the Android news.
I read a blog to keep up with the Android news.
to stay up to date, you need with; keep up + noun means continue (keep up the good work)
I'm aiming for become a staff engineer.
I'm aiming to become a staff engineer.
aim to + verb, aim for + noun
More lessons on this grammar: Phrasal verbs lessons and exercises
Try the phrasal verbs for work exercises
Try them yourself: these are the same exercises your students do in edio.
What's in the lesson
- 12 auto-checked exercises
- 3 games
- 2 teacher-checked tasks
- 2 real-life documents
- 1 article
- 1 grammar scheme
- 1 set of word cards
- 1 audio clip
- 1 picture
- 1 transcript
The main objectives of this lesson are to:
- use ten career phrasal verbs: I'd like to take on a cross-team project. Nobody owned the plan, so she stepped up.
- put it and them in the right place: take it on, pick it up, but look into it and sign up for it
- set goals with I'm aiming to + verb, I'm aiming for + noun and In a year's time, I'd like to have led…
- talk through a growth plan in a one-on-one, from your path to the support you need: Would you be my mentor?
Lesson 22 opens Growing your career, the last unit of English for IT B2 · Beyond the Code, where learners give feedback, run retros and talk about career goals. It brings back phrasal verbs from English A2.2 lesson 7 (turn it on, plug them in) and the incident phrasal verbs of lesson 8 (roll back, spin up), now for a career path. Lessons 23 and 24 move on to reporting verbs for feedback and to wish in a retro.
The warm-up opens boxes of questions about the learners' work, then teaches twelve career words with pictures and audio, from staff engineer to delegate. The story presents Tanya Reilly's 2022 book The Staff Engineer's Path and its two roads after senior. Wes's growth plan comes next, with true-or-false statements and a phrasal verb match, then an AI-voiced call in which he asks a staff engineer about the path. After the scheme, five drills check themselves, from choosing the right particle to a growth plan with verbs in the right form. In the speaking chapter, students answer their manager in a one-on-one chat, then spin a wheel of career questions.
Homework opens with a phrase bank, then notes from the call with the right forms to choose and a memory match of career words, both self-checking. Students write their own growth plan with at least five phrasal verbs and record a short talk about where they'd like to be in two years; the teacher reviews the plan and the talk.
- Grammar:
- phrasal verbs · talking about goals
- Topic:
- career growth · staff engineer · growth plans
Teaching tips
- Map the career ladder before the reading: ask whether the learners' company has a path for experts who don't want to manage people, and sketch its steps on the board.
- Drill pronouns with quick prompts: say The payouts project? and students answer I'd love to take it on; say The crash on old phones? and they answer I'll look into it.
- Play the staff engineer's call for her advice: learners list each tip she gives, such as teaching two people what you look for, and say which one they would follow first.
- Let one-to-one learners bring their real plan: the homework growth plan can become notes for their next one-on-one at work, and the chat makes a good rehearsal for it.
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The whole course: English for IT B2 · Beyond the Code
24 lessons at B2 for software teams, in American English. A year on at Kestrel Cloud, a fictional payments startup, Iryna and her team estimate work, write docs and postmortems, argue trade-offs, give demos and negotiate scope. Each lesson starts from a real case, from the Apollo 11 alarms to Conway's law.See the course
Unit 1 Planning and estimates
estimates and deadlines: approximating numbers, the future continuous and perfect, likelihood
Unit 2 Docs people read
specs and design docs: modals for requirements, participle clauses, plain English
Unit 3 Incidents and postmortems
telling an incident without blame: narrative tenses, the passive, the third conditional
Unit 4 Architecture and trade-offs
comparing options and recording decisions: contrast linkers, modals of deduction, mixed conditionals
Unit 5 Demos and tech talks
a clear structure on stage: signposting, cleft sentences, describing trends
Unit 6 Stakeholders and scope
saying no and finding yes: diplomatic language, as long as and unless, negotiating
Unit 7 AI, security and ethics
AI tools, passwords and team rules: be used to and get used to, past modals of deduction, purpose linkers
Unit 8 Growing your career
feedback, retros and goals: phrasal verbs, reporting verbs, wish and if only
Lesson 22 · you're hereYour next levelCareer phrasal verbs and goal frames
Lesson 23Feedback that helpsReporting verbs and their patterns
Lesson 24Start, stop, continueWish and if only for wishes and regrets
